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BONNIE SCOTLAND AND WHAT WE OWE HER. 

Illustrated. 
BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART. Its History, Legends, 

Industry and Modern Expansion. Illustrated. 
CHINA'S STORY, IN MYTH, LEGEND, ART AND 

ANNALS. Illustrated. 
THE STORY OF NEW NETHERLAND. Illustrated. 
YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF HOLLAND. Illus- 
trated. 
BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND, AND WHAT SHE TAUGHT 

US. Illustrated. In Riverside Library for Young People. 

In Riverside School Library. Half leather. 
THE AMERICAN IN HOLLAND. Sentimental Ramblings 

in the Eleven Provinces of the Netherlands. With a map 

and illustrations. 
THE PILGRIMS IN THEIR THREE HOMES, — ENG- 
LAND, HOLLAND, AND AMERICA. Illustrated. In 

Riverside Library for Young People. 
JAPAN: IN HISTORY, FOLK-LORE, AND ART. In 

Riverside Library for Young People. 
MATTHEW CALBRAITH PERRY. A typical American 

Naval Officer. Illustrated. 
TOWN SEND HARRIS, First American Envoy in Japan. 

With portrait. 
THE LILY AMONG THORNS. A Study of the Biblical 

Drama entitled The Song of Songs. White cloth, gilt top. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and New York 



BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ITS HISTORY. LEGENDS, INDUSTRY, AND 
MODERN EXPANSION 




ANTWERP CATHEDRAL AND STATUE OF RUBENS (p. 5) 



BELGIUM: 
THE LAND OF ART 

ITS HISTORY, LEGENDS, INDUSTRY 
AND MODERN EXPANSION 

BT 

WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 

AUTHOK OF ** BRAVE UTTLE HOLLAND," AKD MEMBER 

OF THE NEDERLANDISH SOCIETIES OF LEYDEN, 

MIDDEI^UEQ, AKD LEEUWARDEN 



NEW EDITION 
REVISED AND ENLARGED 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(£t)e miteri^ibe ij^tt^^ Cambridge 



PREFACE 

"What can an American see in Belgium?" 
asked a twentieth-century friend. My answer 
was, " What he has eyes to see." This little book, 
written after four journeyings in the Low Coun- 
tries between France and Germany, is intended to 
give pleasure to the reader at home, and to the 
traveler the means of enjoying what he sees. Fur- 
thermore, it shows how numerous and vital ar^ 
the points of contact between American and Bel- 
gic history. No other land is richer in history or 
more affluent in art than is Belgium. In none 
have devout, industrious, patriotic and gifted sons 
told their country's story more attractively. By 
pen and in print, on canvas, in mural decoration, 
in sculpture, in monuments of bronze and marble, 
in fireplaces and in wood-carving, the story may 
be read as in an illuminated missal. Belfries, 
town-halls, churches, guild-houses, have each and 
all a charm of their own. Yet what avails all this 
historic and artistic wealth, to the unread and 
uncultured, if he fail to understand or appreciate 
what is before his eyes? 

I have told in outline the story of savage, Ro- 
man, Frankish, feudal, crusading, mediaeval, Re- 
naissance, and modern Belgic land, and of the 
people in what, until 1830, was the old house of 



VUl 



PREFACE 



bondage, with many masters, yet rich in local lib* 
erties, despite tyrants and oppressors many. 

It is one of the wonders of history that a bi: 
lingual people, of two distinct ethnic stocks, Cel- 
tic and Teutonic, and successively in subjugation 
to Rome, Germany, Burgundian and Bourbon 
France, Spain, Austria, and to French Revolu- 
tionaries, to Napoleon, and to Holland, should 
finally, in 1830, win unity, freedom, and sover- 
eignty. I have glanced at the eighty years or 
more of Belgian nationality, prosperity, and ex- 
pansion by commerce and colonization. 

Not less interesting than the story of their po* 
litical vicissitudes is that of the social, economic, 
industrial, and artistic development of the Bel- 
gians. No people can be understood unless their 
past is clear. Nevertheless, I have dwelt upon the 
early mediaeval and Renaissance periods, not with 
the " backward look," but as the soil from which 
the present has outflowered. In ages forgotten lie 
the roots of both their art and their national 
spirit. It is not to the " dead " past that I have 
given much space, but rather to those salient 
events and tendencies which have made fertility 
for the present and seed for the future. The story 
of Belgium may be read not alone in text and 
document, but also in statues and painting, carv- 
ing and heraldry, lace and tapestry, and the mod- 
ern natives have used these lavishly, both to ex- 
press and to interpret the spirit and actions of 



PREFACE ix 

their predecessors. In this very condensed sketch 
I have laid emphasis on those phases of history 
which the Belgians themselves most value, and 
which they have notably represented in art, so 
that they are most visible to the tourist to-day. I 
have utilized not only the conclusions of critical 
scholarship, but also the results of my own studies 
and observations. Space, however, permits only 
a view of the bold headlands of the national his- 
tory. One admires the experience-wise sons of 
Belgium, in their frank setting-forth, with pen, 
brush, and chisel, both the humiliations and the 
glories of their native land. They know that 
" Life often jests at what Death makes immortal." 

I have been careful to show our debt to the 
Walloons (who, rather than the Dutch, first made 
homes in New Netherland, and, with the Flem- 
ings, furnished so large a contribution to the 
American composite), and to call attention to 
their great symbol of faith, — the Belgic Confes- 
sion. In my large congregation at Schenectady 
(1877-1886), yes, and in Boston and Ithaca, 
were hundreds of people, like the de Forests, van 
Antwerps, etc., who were descended from fore- 
fathers taught by Guido de Bray and fugitives 
from the Spanish invasion of 1567. Thousands 
of Americans who say and believe that their an- 
cestors were "Huguenots" are, in reality, de- 
scended from the Walloons. 

At some future time I hope to add a volume on 



« PREFACE 

my personal adventures, experiences, observations, 
and studies, entitled " The American in Belgium," 
the fruits of my journeyings in the land of the 
Maas and the Sambre. 

W. E. G. 
Ithaca, New York. 



PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

In this revised and enlarged edition I have scruti- 
nized the text and made such corrections as 
seemed necessary, after my last visit to Belgium 
in 1913, when I went over a large part of what 
became the battle Une of 1914-16. 

An additional chapter on * Brave Little Bel- 
gium" brings the historical narrative into focus 
with the initial events of the great world-war. In 
this, and in correcting the text, I have been aided 
by correspondents in or from Belgium, whom I 
thank heartily. 

A final chapter glances at military campaigns 
and at the towering figures of their leaders. Hence- 
forth Belgium must be known as one of the hero 
nations of the world. 

The author ventures once more to remind his 
countrymen of the forgotten debt we owe to the 
Walloons, as the first home-makers in the Middle 
States. The story of the Pilgrims, whose tercen- 
tenary in 1920 will have almost world-wide cele- 
bration, has only of late been extricated from that 
of the Puritans. Why should not that of Nova Bel- 
gica be recovered? 

Despite the atrocious devastation and the in- 



xii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 

credible loot of 1914-18, which throws into 
shadow the Spanish Fury of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, Belgium is still the Land of Art. The inex- 
tinguishable fires of genius and industry are stead- 
ily re-creating the land of Van Eyck, Memhng, 
Rubens, and MaeterHnck. The country of the 
Walloons and Flemings will have a rebirth of free- 
dom as surely as that for which, at Gettysburg, 
our Lincoln prayed in behalf of the nation of 
which we are part. May the unbroken friendship 
between Belgium and the United States expand 
and deepen for the mutual benefit of both peoples. 

W. E. G, 

Ithaca, New York, September 17, 1919 



CONTENTS 

I. The Face of the Country . . . • 1 

II. The Roman Dominion and Results . . 10 

III. The Coming of the Franks . . • . 20 

lY. The Century of the Saints .... 30 

V. Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Em- 
pire 39 

VI. The Verdun Compact 49 

VII. Feudalism and Industry .... 60 

VIII. The Belgian Crusaders 71 

IX. Woman's Industries in the Castle. . 84 

X. The Decline of Feudalism .... 94 

XI. Flemish Cities in the Middle Ages . 106 

XII. The Van Arteveldes : 'Twixt England 

and France 117 

aIII. The Decline of the Communes . . , 124 

XIV. Burgundy and the ELnights of the 

Golden Fleece ....... 133 

XV. Charles the Bold : Pageants and Tra- 
gedies 142 

XVL The Story of Tapestry 155 



xiv CONTENTS 

XVII. A Constitution : The Joyous Entry . 165 

XVIII. Charles V and the New Ideas . . 178 

XIX. Brussels : The Great Abdication . . 187 

XX. The Belgic Confession and Leader . 196 

XXI. Flight of the Walloons and Flemings 205 

XXII. A Leased State : The Great Infanta 216 

XXIII. The Age of Rubens. The Jesuit Re- 

action 226 

XXIV. The Austrian Netherlands . . . 234 

XXV. " The Crowned Anarchist " : Liege and 

Spa 244 

XXVI. Under French Masters • . . . 254 

XXVII. Under a Dutch King 263 

XXVIII. The National Revolution of 1830 . 272 

XXIX. Reconstruction of the Belgian State 283 

XXX. Greater Belgium : The Congo State 292 

XXXI. Brave Little Belgium .... 300 

XXXn. Where Poppies Blow 312 

Chief Events in Belgian History . 325 

Index 329 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Antwerp Cathedral and Statue of Rubens 

(pa^e 5) Frontispiece 

A Market Team in Flanders 16 

A Naval Expedition under ijharlemagne . . 40 

The Industrious Walloons 54 

Belgian Crusaders in Portugal .... 76 

The Beguin Nuns at Work 86 

Lace-Makers at Bruges 92 

The Great Belfry of Bruges 114 

Louvain City Hall 126 

The Great Rock of Dinant on the Maas . . 152 

The Old Guild Houses at Ghent .... 188 

On the Beach at Ostend 220 

Spa : " A Famous Focus of Pleasure "... 252 

The Lion Mound at Waterloo 262 

The Heath and Dunes in Summer .... 276 

Under the Dome : Congo Museum • • • . 296 



BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

CHAPTER I 

THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY 

To the American who has planned to enter con- 
tinental Europe through the gateway of the Scheldt 
Kiver, making Antwerp his threshold, both the 
sandy dunes and this arm of the sea have a most 
fascinating history. At once the name of Low 
Countries seems appropriate, for from the steam- 
er's deck only church spires are visible above the 
flats and hollows. 

Yet the panorama, to the student of American 
origins, has many a story to tell. While still off 
the low French coast of what was once Belgic 
territory, we catch a view of the spires of Dunkirk. 
The name is Flemish, not French. It means the 
Dune-kerk, or church in the dunes. Out of this 
coign of vantage, in the fighting days of the Dutch 
Republic, the " enemy," or the " pirates " under the 
Spanish flag, swooped upon the Amsterdam ships 
bound to America, bringing the settlers from Old to 
New Netherland. In the sealed contract with the 
domine, schoolmaster, or emigrant on his voyage 
to Manhattan, Long Island, the Raritan, Delaware 
Bay, or Mohawk Valley, it was stipulated that he 



2 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

would be ransomed and his salary paid while in 
prison, if captured by the ferocious Dunkirkers. 

Here lived Jean Bart, who first served under 
de Ruyter and then turned his coat and devastated 
Dutch fishing-smacks. Did the French Govern- 
ment mean a joke, when, at the Hudson-Fulton 
celebration in 1909, they sent their battleship 
named after Jean Bart to particij^te in the frolic 
on the Hudson ? Or was their list of naval heroes 
so scanty? In September, 1911, one of the six 
great Dreadnaughts of France took the water, and 
with the bottle of wine broken over her bow was 
pronounced the name of the Dunkirker, Jean 
Bart. To-day the French city boasts a bronze 
statue of the hero. 

Here, too, at Dunkirk were the headquarters 
of the Yankee privateers during our Revolutionary 
War, when, out of a hundred and fifty marauding 
vessels that preyed on British commerce and 
" lifted" five million dollars' worth of the enemy's 
property on the high seas, at least seventy-eight 
were under the flag of the Continental Congress, 
of thirteen stripes. These American privateers 
made King George's people want peace in 1783. 
For a long time the Quai des Am^ricains was a 
bustling place. 

Nieupoort comes next, where, in 1600, the Dutch 
Republican army under young Maurice, son of 
William the Silent, and the political father of 
New Netherland, for the first time in Dutch his- 



THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY 3 

tory overcame a Spanish army in the open field. 
Maurice won a victory which, when celebrated by 
illuminations in Amsterdam, was the occasion of 
the van Rensselaer motto, which the young general 
himself bestowed, "I excel all." This victory made 
possible the safe residence of the Walloons and 
the Pilgrim Fathers in Leyden, and because of it 
they were able to get to America to settle the 
Middle States and New England. 

Ostend, with its gay summer throngs, recalls 
how, in 1854, President Pierce directed our pro- 
slavery envoys in Europe — Buchanan, Mason, and 
Soul^ — to discuss the Cuban question ; how their 
ultimatum to Spain was to "sell out"; and how 
such a contention in the " Ostend Manifesto " was 
denounced by the opposite party platform as "the 
highwayman's plea that ' might makes right.' " 

But let us forget politics, even those old and 
cold, for in Belgium they are lively and hot enough, 
between Liberal and Conservative, because re- 
ligion is mixed with state policy. We shall return 
to ancient American history, as we enter the broad 
Scheldt. 

From the deck of a Red Star steamer, on our 
left as we take on our pilot, we gaze at Flushing. 
Here lived in the seventh century, Willibrord, the 
first Christian missionary; and hence, in the eight- 
eenth century, came the first English-speaking 
minister to the Dutch congregations on Manhat- 
tan Island, serving from 1763 to 1779. Here on 



4 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

that June morning in 1864 lay the Kearsarge, when 
her commander Winslow received word to fight 
the Alabama. 

On our right is Breskins, one of the places 
which suggest the three golden balls of the pawn- 
broker, for, with Flushing and Rammekins, thrifty 
Queen Elizabeth held this place as " collateral," 
before she would let the London merchants advance 
money or send soldiers to the Dutch in their war 
of independence against Spain. As we pass farther 
up " the grayest of gray rivers," we find it hard 
to discover the country, so low does it lie behind 
the dikes. Only here and there do we catch a 
glimpse of even a lofty church spire. Everything 
seems down in the cellar. 

Until we cross the Belgian frontier, near the 
point at which the stream narrows and turns to 
the right, the land we see is Zeeland. It lies within 
the domains of Queen Wilhelmina and belongs to 
Holland. Motley tells us how, when former queens 
of commerce, Verona, Venice, Nuremberg, Augs- 
burg, and Bruges, had passed the day of their glory 
and were aging to decay, "Antwerp, with its deep 
and convenient river, stretched its arm to the ocean 
and caught the golden prize, as it fell from its 
sister cities' grasp." 

The red-roofed farmhouses, the gardens and the 
orchards, the herds of cattle and the little low 
dwellings, the churches, with their graveyards be- 
low and their towers above, all come into view. 



THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY 5 

Everything recalls what we have read about in the 
southern Netherlands. The arms of the windmills 
are gyrating on land, and the brown-sailed, thick- 
prowed, heavy-looking boats bump against the 
waves. Soon we catch sight of the great cathedral 
spire, the most " ladylike " of all the glorious crea- 
tions of man that lift their heads to the sky. Here 
and there other towers, like winged forms of life, 
seem to fly into view. The houses, with their ser- 
rated lines of gables, or crow steps, wear an air of 
friendly welcome. At last we come into full view 
of Antwerp, one of the greatest of the world's 
seaports. Her proud citizens, once hoping that 
their city, the richest in Europe, would '' on the 
outstretched forefinger of all time sparkle for- 
ever," coined the proverb, "The whole world is a 
ring, of which Antwerp is the diamond." But that 
was before Alva and Philip H ! Thus they talked 
before Spanish oppression drove out the best in- 
tellect of the country to enrich rival nations. For 
two hundred and fifteen years the Belgians were 
a " hermit nation " so far as intrusion from sea- 
commerce was concerned. She was as truly sealed 
up from the ocean as was Japan, and for the same 
length of time. 

Our entrance into the land of the Belgae is at 
the northern end, and farthest from that at which 
Caesar crossed its threshold. We are in the great- 
est of Flemish cities — the home of Rubens. Mak- 
ing our way to the great square, we behold a 



6 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

superb fountain surrounded by a small mountain 
of bronze. It is not so large as that first metallic 
wonder of the world, the Dai Butsu, or Great 
Buddha, of Kamakura, in Nippon, but each of 
these works of art, so far apart, typifies in a sense 
the long and fascinating story of the country in 
which it is reared. 

At the masthead of our steamer flies a flag 
with the tricolor, red, yellow, and black, of Bra- 
bant, which floats over nearly eight million peo- 
ple. We recall that this, the central province, is 
the most famous of the nine, while Antwerp is 
the most renowned of Belgian cities. Yet how 
did the names Brabant and Antwerp arise ? Even 
the attempt to answer this question shows that 
when we dip into the local lore, we are in a world 
outside of science. Despite the ultra-practical na- 
ture of the land and the people, rich in cows, coal, 
machinery, and money, Belgium has a large fairy 
population. Her people enjoy themselves in the 
realms of imagination as well as on the solid 
earth. 

According to a legend which the natives dearly 
love, there was a famous Fraukish chief named 
Sylvius Brabo, and Brabant, the land of Brabo, 
was his domain. On the banks of the Scheldt, a 
mighty giant, probably a feudal baron, had his 
castle. This terrible fellow, named Antigonus, was 
a robber, who compelled every boat that passed 
his grim stronghold to pay a heavy toll. Should 



THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY 7 

any captain refuse the mulct, the giant cut off his 
hand and threw it into the Scheldt. Thus, out of 
an etymology of myth made in the nurseries, Ant- 
werp means " hand-werpen," or the "hand-throw- 
ing." Many sets of five fingers went into the 
Scheldt. 

Young Brabo, the Belgian hero, like his cousin 
Jack the Giant Killer of England, was as eager 
to fight this human monster as our dime-novel 
reading boys once were to shoot Indians. Enter- 
ing the robber's castle, Brabo killed him and then 
tossed his big hand into the river. One discerns 
in the bronze the headless trunk, the huge legs, 
arms, and feet of Antigonus, and, resting on top 
of his body, like Mount JEtna above Vulcan's 
forges, is the castle of Antwerp, on top of which 
Brabo stands facing the water, with his token 
of victory. The arms of the city contain on the 
escutcheon two severed hands. 

Yet back of all the legends and guesswork, one 
finds on mediaeval maps, before Antwerp had be- 
come a place of trade, the name " Andhunerbo," 
or "hand-throwing." InFrankish days the cutting- 
off of hands for theft was as common in Europe 
as in Islam, where the same punishment was meted 
out to a defiler or seller of a copy of the Koran 
to infidels. 

On this same river some story-tellers locate the 
legend of Lohengrin, knight of the silver-white 
armor, who in a boat of shell, drawn by a swan of 






8 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

snow-white plumage, rescues a maiden in peril. 
Like the mikado myths of Japan, this one was 
spun to glorify the house of Bouillon, — of which 
Godfrey the Crusader, whose superb equestrian 
statue stands in Brussels, was a scion. 

Other writers, including Mr. Motley, — who 
always loved a joke, even in writing his serious 
history, — found a derivation of Antwerp's name 
in the fact that the Antwerpers built wharves in 
very early times and had a flourishing commerce. 
Hence, says Mr. Motley, Antwerp's name means 
an t' werf," or "on the wharf." 

The Belgian Lion " was another name for the 
once united seventeen provinces of the Nether- 
lands, of which Belgium has nine. One steps ashore 
to be confronted with mediaeval emblems, among 
which he finds that Leo is the chief beast in pub- 
lic heraldry. At least six of the nine provinces 
have a lion on their shields, while Liege has three 
of the long-maned beasts standing on their hind 
legs. This creature does not represent the lion that 
we see in cages in a menagerie, or that is shot 
in Africa, but, instead, a composite of curls and 
claws, with tail and limbs in the most rampant 
and frivolous attitudes, which are rather more 
fantastic than natural. In the Netherlands, these 
funny caricatures of the real beast run riot over 
coats of blazonry, both public and private. For 
centuries the home of democracy was in the Low 
Countries, and ordinary people had family coats 



THE FACE OF THE COUNTRT 9 

of arms as well as the nobles, who could claim no 
monopoly of the menagerie, real or imaginary. 

In a country so rich in " estaminets," or beer 
saloons, in which tobacco is burned and alcohol is 
supposed to furnish stamina, — where the tourist 
who asks for plain water to drink is apt to be 
stared at as if he were a lunatic, — the name of 
Antigonus seems strange. Is it not written that 
the general bearing this name, who served Alex- 
ander the Great, " discharged some of his officers 
because they spent their time in taverns"? How- 
ever, it shows that the Belgians consider their 
country to be very old. 

Eoughly speaking, their history may be divided 
into ten eras: prehistoric, Roman, Frankish, feu- 
dal, Spanish, Reformatory, Austrian, Napoleonic, 
Dutch, and national. It was not until 1830 that 
Belgium became a united and independent coun- 
try, whose perpetual neutrality was guaranteed by 
the Great Powers in 1839. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ROMAN DOMINION AND RESULTS 

C^SAR is the godfather of Belgium, for he first 
introduced the brave Belgae to the world. His 
deathless " commentaries " contain the initial de- 
scription of the country. 

In 57 B.C. this Roman entered Gaul with eight 
legions, comprising fifty thousand disciplined sol- 
diers. In the territory now comprised in Belgium, 
he found that the various tribes had formed 
leagues for mutual defense. They numbered about 
a million and a half people and could put on foot 
an army of three hundred thousand warriors. The 
Romans marched in from the west, probably in 
the region of Mons, in Hainault. 

The Nervii, or confederated Belgic tribes, had 
sent into the forests lining the Scheldt all their 
people except fighting men, had fortified their 
camp, had gathered a host, which with their allies 
numbered eighty thousand, and awaited the onset 
of the Roman invaders. They were led by their 
chief Boduognat, whose name probably means 
" Son of Victory." 

Caesar, entirely unaware of the nearness of the 
enemy, on reaching the river ordered a camp to 
be laid out. He then sent some horsemen across 



THE ROMAN DOMINION AND RESULTS 11 

to reconnoitre the hill on the opposite side. Like 
Indian braves, the young Nervii could not be re- 
strained when a prize was so near, and in one wild 
rush they rose and with shouts overwhelmed the 
Eoman cavalry. Then, dashing across the river, 
they pressed the Romans so hard that the Twelfth 
Legion began to waver. Caesar, who in his tent 
had heard the noise, took in the situation at once. 
He rallied his troops, and by his personal courage 
saved the day. Had the legions broken their ranks 
and the savages got inside their squares, they 
would have been overwhelmed. But Caesar's pre- 
sence strengthened the wavering lines. As usual, 
discipline proved superior to valor. The half -naked 
warriors found confronting them a wall of steel 
and brass which they vainly attempted to break. 
For hours the slaughter continued. The Ner- 
vii fought to the last man. It was literally true 
that, towards the end, the chief obstacle be- 
tween the natives and their foreign foes con- 
sisted of a rampart of the dead bodies of their 
countrymen. Only five hundred survivors were 
left. The tribes were virtually annihilated. It was 
the submission only of old men, widows, and or- 
phans which Caesar received. To them, in admi- 
ration, the conqueror granted the protection of 
Rome, the status of a free people, exemption 
from taxation, and the name, style, and title of 
allies, instead of subjects. At Rome, in the temple 
of the Capitoline Jove, for this victory the sacri- 



12 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ficial fires of thanksgiving to the gods burned for 
fifteen days. 

Caesar's conquest of Belgic land need not here 
be told in detail. It was as business-like a " pro- 
position " as the steady fulfillment of a contract. 
Civilization prevailed over savagery. Another 
great battle, over the Aduatici, virtually decided 
the final conquest of the lower Belgian land, the 
area of hills and valleys, or Walloonia. Thirty- 
three thousand men were sold as slaves. War was 
a business with the Romans. After victory, began 
an auction for the labor market of the time. 

It now remained to Caesar to make himself 
master of the north, where lived the men of the 
swamps, the Menapii and the Morini. In their 
impenetrable fastnesses and forests they believed 
that their dark and spongy land could not be suc- 
cessfully invaded. The legions needed hard ground 
for their baggage and engines of war, their move- 
ments and formations. When Caesar attempted to 
cut down the forests and open the marshes to 
sunlight, he realized the magnitude of his task, 
and gave it up. However, he " pacified " enough 
of the land of the Morini to carry out his favorite 
plan of invading Britain, in which he succeeded. 
He had already bridged the Scheldt River at 
Xanten, and with five legions assailing the Mena- 
pii on three sides, he reduced the tribe to com- 
plete subjection within two years. 

The Belgic tribes, however, had plucked up 



THE ROMAN DOMINION AND RESULTS 13 

fresh courage during Caesar's absence in England, 
and in the swamps and forests of the Ardennes, 
they united under Ambiorix to secure independ- 
ence, and fresh campaigns were necessary. In one 
instance the Roman soldiers were treacherously 
ambuscaded in the woods and butchered to the 
last man. Caesar first relieved his captain, Sabi- 
nus, who was surrounded by the enemy, and then, 
joined by Titus Labienus, led a host of ven- 
geance, numbering a hundred thousand men, 
across the country to where are now Liege and 
Maastricht. He subjugated the Eburones with fire 
and sword. Ambiorix, uncaptured, escaped into 
the forests. After massacre and famine, the Ebu- 
rones disappeared from history. 

By the year 50 B.C., the bravest tribes were an- 
nihilated, the others humbled, and the Belgic land 
was conquered. After the soldier, Rome sent her 
statesman. Caesar combined the land of the Belgae, 
Celtae, and Aquitani into a single province, but 
Augustus later divided this part of Gaul into three 
provinces, one of which, in the north, bordering 
on the sea, was named Belgica. To Caesar belongs 
the credit of conquest ; to Augustus, the honor of 
a civil organization which was to endure for five 
centuries. 

Yet Rome never made the same progress in en- 
forcing her civilization upon the Belgae as upon 
the Gauls, and the reason seems to be plain. The 
conquest was far from complete in the great for- 



U BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ests like those in the Ardennes, while in the im- 
passable swamps and marshes near the coast it 
was hardly felt. Throughout the ages, Belgic land 
has ever been repopulated by fresh accessions 
from the eastward, from beyond the Maas, from 
Germany, and not from France. Thousands of 
the prisoners taken in the long wars with the Ger- 
mans along the Rhine fled to or were established 
as colonists along the Maas and the Sambre ; that 
IS, in the region of the Flemings, or fugitives — 
flander-land, or "Flanders." Thus, reinforced 
from the forests, these northerners retained the 
ruder and more robust habits of Teutonic men. 
The Romans, having already noted their warlike 
character and aversion to roof dwellings, declared 
that the Belgic folk were less conquered than 
dominated. 

The conclusions to be drawn from a study of 
the Roman conquest of this region are, that al- 
though the natives could not resist the legions in 
battle, yet the Belgae, caring neither for houses 
nor for towns, and proud of their forest origins, 
preserved to a great extent their ancestral cus- 
toms and traits. Constant reinforcements from 
beyond the Rhine enabled them to maintain their 
original characteristics. So it came to pass that 
when the Huns from Siberia, in the fourth cen- 
tury, were humbling both the Roman Empire and 
Germany, the new-coming Franks found refuge 
in Belgic forests, and there were enabled to con- 



THE ROMAN DOMINION AND RESULTS 15 

solidate their forces, breast the storm, and re- 
emerge with power. 

A survey of the first six centuries of known 
Belgic history enables us to see that the spirit and 
sentiment, so necessary for the rearing of an in- 
dependent state and a free people, were increased 
rather than decreased by the discipline under the 
Romans. As rightfully as do the English by Lon- 
don Bridge and near their mighty houses of Par- 
liament, proudly rear in imperishable bronze the 
figures of Cassivellaunus and Queen Boadicea, as 
defenders of their native soil, and the French on 
Mont Auxois the figure of Vercingetorix ; so the 
Belgians do honor to the courage and rude patri- 
otism of their primitive chieftains. At Antwerp 
stands the bronze statue of Boduognat, chief of 
the Nervii, and at Tongres that of Ambiorix. 

In its dualism of races, languages, and physical 
features, Belgium is much the same to-day as the 
Romans found it. The national household con- 
tains two ethnic stocks, — the Walloons, or Celtic, 
French-speaking people in the south, and the 
Flemings, or Dutch-speaking people of Teutonic 
stock in the north. One half of the country pro- 
duces metals and the other half grain and food, 
as if Vulcan and Ceres had divided the domain 
between them. The Walloons, as a rule, work in 
the foundry and the Flemings on the farm. In the 
census by languages, the number of those speak- 
ing Flemish is somewhat over one half of the total 



16 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

population, but most educated Belgians speak both 
languages, and the laws are issued in bilingual 
form. Walloon, which is old Gaulish, and not 
" corrupt French," is heard only in the rural re- 
gions, almost all Walloons now using modern 
French. Nearly all the cities, towns, and rivers 
have two names ; as, Doornick and Tournay ; 
Mechlin and Malines ; Mons and Bergen ; Maas 
and Meuse, — the former Flemish, the latter Wal- 
loon. In this book, as a rule, the Flemish form is 
used ; as, for example, Maas, instead of Meuse, the 
name of the country's chief river. 

If Belgian humanity is bilingual, soil and geo- 
logy show the same dualism. The ranges of moun- 
tains of central Europe, which re emerge in the 
British Islands, have their lower curves and upper 
strata in Belgium, thus making the hilly country 
of the Ardennes on the east, the great flat heaths 
of the Campine moorland in the central portion, 
and the sandy low country on the north, which is 
diked in from the sea. The south or Walloon coun- 
try is a factory. The northern or Flemish part is 
a garden. Brabant, in which is Brussels, is a link 
between the two, both in languages and in indus- 
tries. In the " black country," or Hainault, swarms 
of miners live and delve. Solid beds of coal, dis- 
covered in 1906, underlie the Campine, or vast 
heath of Limburg. 

Although one may draw a line across the coun- 
try from east to west, separating Walloon and 




A MARKET TEAM IN FLANDERS 



THE ROMAN DOMINION AND RESULTS 17 

Fleming humanity, and the soils, the products, 
the languages, even the aspects of civilization, yet 
in modern Belgium, north and south, Fleming and 
Walloon, mechanic and farm laborer, make one 
nation. Throughout all ages of calm or storm 
since history began, despite despot and dema- 
gogue, social unity has been preserved. 

Certain factors have ever worked for Belgian 
nationality. The Flemings, of German descent, 
being at the west, close neighbors of France, were 
tied by many interests to the French ; while the 
Walloons, of much the same blood and speech as 
the Gauls and French, in the east were set closest 
to Germany. This curious allocation of the two 
peoples, despite difference in blood and language, 
has made the forces of attraction greater than 
those of repulsion. The long story of the two 
peoples is like that of Castor and Pollux. Al- 
though the words " Flanders," " Fleming," and 
" Flemish " are the more common in the English 
language and literature, millions of Americans 
should not forget their ancestry among the Wal- 
loons or French-speaking Belgians. 

The note of life, in the Belgium we knew, was 
industry. By man's toil the wilderness became 
a garden and the dark wood open to sunlight. 
Even down to the battle of Waterloo, in 1815, 
dense forests covered hundreds of square miles 
where later were rich farms and fine country 
seats. Within those wooded areas, until the four- 



18 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

teenth century roamed droves of wild horses. In 
the leafy coverts a rich fauna on hoof and wing 
found a joyous home, while the tangled woodland 
in every age gave shelter to the human exile, out- 
law and outcast. To-day the bear, the beaver, the 
lion, the wolf, the oroc, the hyena, the wild boar, 
and other carnivorous animals, once common in 
Belgium, live only with dragons, griffins, and 
creatures of imagination, in the rich heraldry of 
the nobles, and on the town arms. By the con- 
stant toil of fifty generations of men, — yes, and 
of women, — by the application of skill and intel- 
ligence, by the use of labor-saving inventions, and 
by the importation of fertilizers from many lands, 
the larger part of the Low Countries became 
rich and beautiful, the loved home of happy 
millions. 

Rich are the remains in the Maas Valley of 
prehistoric man, who has left behind him his tools 
of chipped flint, his pottery, remains of banquets, 
and imposing dolmens. Passing by these and pierc- 
ing the strata of history, as revealed in the mod- 
ern, mediaeval, Roman, and Teutonic names, we 
can see how our pagan ancestors worshiped when 
living among the trees. It is cultural to note what 
inheritances we have received from them. We 
still keep their names of the days of the week, 
which tell of the moon ; of Tewis or Tues, 
the war-god ; of Woden, or Odin, god of heaven 
and storms, whose eye is the sun and whose blue 



THE ROMAN DOMINION AND RESULTS 19 

mantle is the sky; of Thor, or Thur, son of Odin, 
champion of the gods, lord of the thunder and 
lightning, who rattles through the air in his char- 
iot ; of Freya, who rewards industrious maidens 
and chides the lazy. These were the deities our 
forefathers worshiped in the forest. There were 
other gods, such as Mannus, of the morning light ; 
Nerthus, or Hertha, who made fruit and grain 
grow in summer ; and Fro, who rode on his wild 
boar over the ripened ears of grain. There were 
many other gods, some of them gentle and even 
motherly in their character. Hills and pools, 
streams and valleys were populous with elves and 
sprites, for all the powers of nature were personi- 
fied. Our ancestors, whether in fear and awe, or 
joy and gladness, loved to worship many great 
and invisible gods. They had not yet reached 
that idea of law, order, and unity in the universe 
which is expressed in monotheism, or the doctrine 
of one God. 

Out of the primeval forest of our distant for- 
bears came also the fairy tales which once were 
sacred legends. In our days the old stories of the 
gods have become harmless amusements for the 
nursery. What once struck terror or induced awe 
now furnishes delight or merriment for us, be- 
cause the mental world and climate in which our 
ancestors lived is not ours. Law, science, and 
Christianity have given us a new heaven and a 
new earth. 



CHAPTER III 

THE COMING OF THE FRANKS 

Our national colors — the red, white, and blue, 
united in one standard as the flag of freedom — 
had their origin in the German forests. When 
the Franks, who were not a tribe, but a federa- 
tion, made their first appearance in history, they 
raised the tricolor and drove out the Eoman 
legions. 

The Romans disappeared from Belgic land, and 
the figure of Clovis (a.d. 465-511) emerged as 
that of a historical character and founder of the 
Prankish Empire. The Frankish or French em- 
blem of nationality is the fleur-de-lys, or lily 
flower, which some say is named from the Flemish 
river Lys, that joins the Scheldt at Ghent and was 
crossed by Clovis and his host. Whether it be 
lance-head, or lily, or bee with outspread wings, 
this was the emblem of the Bourbons until Na- 
poleon, seeking a symbol of power older even 
than the traditional fleur-de-lys, set swarms of 
Frankish bees in gold upon his imperial robe. 

Clovis fixed his seat at Paris a.d. 507. Then 
he overcame the Burgundians, who gave their 
name to the Burgundy with which the fortunes of 
the Belgians were later associated, in both splen- 



THE COMING OF THE FRANKS 21 

dor and humiliation. Clovis married a Christian 
princess, Clotilda, and thus the way was opened 
from barbarism to Christianity. 

We may not here tell in detail of the Mero- 
vingian dynasty of Frankish kings, which belongs 
properly to the story of France. History followed 
much the same lines as in Japan and China, for 
human nature in Orient and Occident is the same. 
After the reaction from forest life with its hard- 
ships, and the novel enjoyment of the luxury of 
cities, many of the kings became and were called 
" do-nothings." The first officer of the royal 
household took the title of the Mayor of the 
Palace. He gradually became the real power- 
holder, even as in Japan the shogun overshadowed 
the mikado. The most illustrious of the palace- 
mayors were Pepin, born at Heristall in Belgic 
land ; his son, Charles Martel, the " hammer " of 
the Saracens ; and Pepin the Short, who ended 
the old and founded the new Carlovingian dynasty, 
in which the greatest was Charles, or Charlemagne, 
the restorer of civilization and founder of the Holy 
Eoman Empire. 

In the welter of primitive Belgic and Koman 
paganism, the Christianity planted in Roman 
times was at first like a flickering flame. Savages 
much like the North American Indians, the Franks 
were slower to receive the spirit and habit of 
Christianity than its verbal creed. The newly 
converted pagans were quick to imitate the vices 



22 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

of civilization and to cover them with the cloak 
of religion. The rivalry of women and men in 
high places ran on in an even tenor toward 
iniquity. The worst passions of human nature 
seemed to take on a more subtle refinement when 
skin clothing was exchanged for textiles and for- 
est law for the conventionalities of a decadent 
civilization. It took many centuries to tame these 
savages and make them Christians in anything 
but name. For a chief to win power was too often 
like '' giving wings to the tiger " that slumbers in 
man. 

After Clotaire, son of Clovis, died, in a.d. 661, 
his estate, in accordance with Frankish or Salic 
law, which excluded females from succession, — 
because with the descent of property in land went 
the bond of military service, — was distributed 
among his four sons. Two of these sons divided 
Belgic land between them, while the third ruled at 
Paris and the fourth at Orleans. The enforcement 
of the Salic law has played a great part in Euro- 
pean politics, especially in France, but nature has 
had her revenges in making the excluded women 
often more powerful than the men in authority. 
It is certain that the sons of Clovis stand in 
shadow compared with the two brilliant women, 
Fredegonda and Brunhilda, whose rivalry, which 
was bitter enough to divide kingdoms and sepa- 
rate races, makes one of the notable tragedies of 
history. 



THE COMING OF THE FRANKS 23 

The vast Frankish Empire was divided into 
eastern and western portions, or Austrasia and 
Neustria, Belgic land lying partly in the one and 
partly in the other, the Scheldt Kiver being the 
dividing line. Sigibert, royal ruler of Austrasia, 
took for his bride Brunhilda, youngest daughter 
of the king of the powerful Visigoths. Thereupon 
his brother Chilperic, driven by jealousy and lust- 
ing for power, sought a wife at the same court 
and wedded Galswinthe, the older sister. But 
Chilperic had long been under control of his beau- 
tiful mistress, Fredegonda, once a kitchen maid, 
but powerful because of both her beauty and her 
wiles. It was at her prompting that Chilperic had 
murdered his first wife. When the new bride 
came home with her husband, Fredegonda was 
dismissed from court. Thereupon she resolved on 
revenge. Galswinthe died suddenly, after a short 
reign, some say of poison and others of assassin- 
ation at the hand of her husband, instigated by 
Fredegonda, who still retained her ascendancy 
over her lord. 

There was as yet no France, no Germany, but 
there are those who look upon Fredegonda as the 
personification of Gallic, and upon Brunhilda as 
the embodiment of Teutonic influence at the 
Frankish court. The feud of these two women 
split the empire. It was so intense and venomous, 
causing a century of war, murder, and domestic 
strife, that some scholars even trace back to this 



24 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

cause that age-long bitterness between France 
and Germany which resulted in the colossal 
struggle of 1870. 

We draw a veil over the details of the long 
strife, in which Sigibert and Chilperic were assas- 
sinated. Then the two women kept up the fight 
with the tenacity of tigresses. Atrocities were man- 
ifold, for both had sons, in whose names they 
fought. Brunhilda maintained the feud even in 
the name of her grandchildren. On the very crest 
of victory, Fredegonda died in a.d. 697, but her 
rival Brunhilda gained no advantage thereby, for 
her own vassals turned against her. In a.d. 618, 
seized by the son of her old enemy, when nearly 
eighty years old, Brunhilda, charged with the 
murder of the Frankish kings, was first tortured 
and then lashed to the tail of a wild horse and 
dragged to her death. Her executioner, Clotaire 
II, the son of Fredegonda, completed his work 
by extirpating the whole brood of Sigibert and 
Brunhilda. 

This chapter of history is Occidental, not Asi- 
atic, or from the page of Iroquois savagery, or of 
the country that coined the proverb, " The white 
lotus springs out of the black mud." " In this at- 
mosphere of cunning and deceit, treachery and 
fratricide, crime and sensuality . . . the beauti- 
ful flower of Christianity opened." The Visigoth 
maiden, Brunhilda, descendant of Alaric, gave up 
Arianism for the orthodox form of religion after 



THE COMING OF THE FRANKS 25 

wedding with Sigibert. Political ambition dom- 
inated her mind. She protected the church — 
sometimes with more insistence than bishops or 
abbots liked, or agreed to. So great a queen as 
Brunhilda has left her name and fame in the 
popular traditions of Belgium and France, and 
the ruins of old castles built and roads made by 
her are more numerous in legend than history 
knows anything about — almost as many as the 
relics of the true cross. 

All these themes and personages have been 
made the subject of art in sculpture, music, 
and painting, by artists who, in our own day, 
have shown what vast treasures of material for 
fresh interpretation and novel artistic presenta- 
tion are found in these early ages. In this sixth 
century those nations whose blood, speech, and 
ideas we inherit, emerging from the forest, were 
coming to consciousness of themselves. The old 
beast instincts were struggling against the call of 
that Divine Spirit that ever beckons man upward. 
Under the religion of Jesus, ultimate victory was 
certain. The higher life rose out of the old brute 
passions, but it was with struggle and pain, such, 
for example, as Wagner has attempted to portray 
in the weird music of the " Parsifal.'* 

Reflections of the early intercourse between 
Ireland and Belgium, illustrated by the barter of 
commodities in savage days, are discerned in the 
fairy tales and saints' legends. In mediaeval life, 



26 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

it was renewed in the exchange of Christian cour- 
tesies. When a great-grandson of Fredegonda 
was to be educated, the Bishop of Poitiers sent 
the boy for safety to an Irish monastery. On his 
return, however, the young man was immediately 
assassinated in the forest of Ardennes. Pepin 
chose Willibrord, then a priest of the monastery 
of Colm Hill, in Ireland, to be missionary to 
the Frisians in the " far North." As bishop of 
Utrecht, this saintly man labored in the northern 
Netherlands during forty years. The Saxons, 
who hated Christianity with all the fanaticism 
that fetish worship breeds, were transplanted in 
large colonies out of the central forests and settled 
upon Belgic soil, proofs of which we can plainly per- 
ceive, even to-day, in their descendants' language, 
customs, physique, habitations, and agriculture. 
The name on the map of Thorhout, or Groves of 
Thor, recalls the worship and superstitions of our 
forest forefathers, when most of Belgic land con- 
sisted of woodland and swamp only opened in 
parts to the sunlight. 

There were many blendings and crosses of races, 
with their varying characteristics. The dominant 
factor in this confederacy of Teutonic tribes was 
the Salian Frank. It is his institutions, customs, 
language, and spirit that have prevailed. Those 
who find these latent in Gelderland behold them 
patent in Flanders. Though the ancestral seats of 
the Salian Franks are not known, their legends 



THE COMING OF THE FRANKS 27 

are connected with the salt ocean, and the name 
of the reputed founder of their social order and 
the Frankish federation, Merovius, means " sea- 
born." The idea of freedom, although closely as- 
sociated with the word Frank, is not original, but 
derivative, the first meaning coming from the 
favorite weapon, the spear. They were the ''spear- 
men," as the Saxons were the '' knife-men." From 
the word " Frank," with its later meaning of 
"free," we get the words "France," "Frank," 
" franc-mason " or " freemason," " Franklin," etc. 

The Salian Franks were pagan to a man. 
Wherever they came, the Latin language and civ- 
ilization disappeared. Sent up in fire and smoke, 
left under an overgrowth of weeds or forest, or 
sunk deep in the soil were the roads and habita- 
tions of the civilized Romans. The Franks used 
the great highways as guides to the richest booty. 

With red or fair hair brought to the front of 
the head, the Franks left the nape of the neck 
uncovered, though kings gloried in long hair. 
They shaved their faces and wore mustaches. 
They put on tunics and breeches reaching to the 
knee, and they drew round their waists a leather 
belt having a broad buckle damascened with sil- 
ver. From this girdle hung a missile axe (that is, 
a tomahawk), a short knife, and, in a bag, arti- 
cles of the toilet, — scissors, comb, etc. Their 
wooden or wicker shield had a large boss. Their 
chiefs were buried in panoply, and their graves, 



28 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

often discovered accidentally, are plentiful in 
Belgium and furnish enrichment to the museums 
and vividness to the page of history. Out of the 
tomb of Childeric, father of Clovis, near Tour- 
nay, were taken in 1653 about three hundred lit- 
tle figures in gold, which had probably adorned 
the royal robe. These Napoleon took in place of 
the lilies of France, as insignia of imperialism. 

One of the most famous Frankish moot-places, 
or sites for the gathering of thousands assembling 
for discussion, with its walls of sand, its platforms 
and entrances still easily discerned, as I have 
seen, is preserved near Nijkerk, in Gelderland, — 
whence a thousand years later came Arendt van 
Curler, founder of Schenectady and of the peace 
policy with the Iroquois, and also van Renssel- 
aer's tenants, settlers of Albany, Saratoga, and 
Rensselaer counties in the Empire State. Visiting 
these links of history on both continents makes 
the chain of human development very discernible. 

Probably no other painter has so successfully 
interpreted, on canvas and in color, the life of the 
Franks as has Alma-Tadema, himself a Nether- 
lander, of Friesland. This artist accepted the art 
of painting not as dealing with mythology, but 
with facts. Declining to reanimate the ideals and 
dreams of the poets, he found in true history his 
congenial themes. Two of his famous canvases 
deal with Franco-Roman history, when nascent 
Christianity was beginning to soften the savagery 



THE COMING OF THE FRANKS 29 

of the forest. Then, decadent Roman luxury made 
wicked people still more atrocious in their sensu- 
alism and cruelty. In Tadema's first picture, the 
" Education of the Children of Clovis," painted 
in 1861, we see that Clotilda, widow of Clovis, 
has retreated to a monastery ; but, keeping up 
the feud with her late husband's enemies, she 
trains her sons to war and revenge. A gaunt, 
muscular Frankish warrior, mustached and with 
war-lock and front plait of hair, stands near by 
in tunic and leggings, as their teacher, while the 
lusty little fellows throw their hatchets at a mark. 
Very much like Iroquois Indians, in dress^ coif- 
fure, physical strength, grade of civilization, pas- 
sions, and method of using tomahawks as mis- 
siles, were these Franks, our forbears. There is 
applause when the chubby youngsters hit the tar- 
get and leave their blades in the wood. Their 
school was that of the warrior. The very words, 
*' Hermann,'' " German," and " war-man " are one. 
The other picture by Tadema (1864) reveals 
to us the beautiful human animal, Fredegonda, 
lovely in face, figure, and costume, though stained 
with a hundred crimes. She comes to visit the 
holy man. Bishop Prsetextus, hoping for his beni- 
son ; instead, he rises on his dying bed to charge 
her with the sins of which she is guilty. This 
powerful painting opens a window into ancient 
history, through which we see the costumes, sur- 
roundings, and life of our ancestors. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE CENTURY OF THE SAINTS 

Belgium is the land of saints. In this country 
the tourist could once see churches almost every- 
where. Monks and nuns were numerous. Most 
of the holy edifices are named after saints familiar 
to all Christendom, but many others have only 
local renown. Yet the memories of Saints Amand, 
Eemacle, Eloi, Gudule, Kombaud, Begge, and 
others are very dear to the Belgians ; nor, after 
the lapse of centuries, is their fame dim. These 
names recall the devoted men and women who 
toiled to Christianize the early barbarians, often 
laying down their lives as martyrs. Of all the 
centuries, the seventh saw the greatest number of 
missionaries and triumphs of the gospel on Belgic 
soil. Hence this is often called the century of the 
saints. As there were various generations of peo- 
ples, in succession, such as the Nervii, the Roman 
Belgae, the Franks, the Teutons, etc., so was there 
a succession of missionaries. 

Work among our savage ancestors was no more 
inviting or any less dangerous than among cruel 
pagans in any age or in any land. Taking their 
lives in their hands, these holy men from the 
south made their way into the forests, heaths, and 



THE CENTURY OF THE SAINTS 31 

swamps. They ran the risk of being spitted upon 
spears by the infuriated human butchers, when- 
ever they interfered with heathenism's bloody 
rites. Yet they bravely stopped the human sacri- 
fices, prohibited the sale of children as slaves, 
modified the brutal treatment of women, and 
abolished other practices which to the men of the 
forest seemed right. To torture, behead, or en- 
slave their captives in war, to build colossal im- 
ages, in wickerwork or tree boughs, of their gods, 
to stuff them with live creatures, men, women, and 
children, and then set them on fire as an offering 
to the gods, were among the pastimes indulged 
in. Besides plaiting their locks and hurling their 
missile axes like tomahawks, painting their bodies 
and dressing in skins of animals, our ancestors 
resembled Indian savages in many other ways. 

To overthrow the hideous idols, to chop down 
the trees considered sacred, and to defy super- 
stition required in a missionary a finer strain of 
valor than the animal courage of the warrior, just 
as moral bravery is superior to physical. Millions 
possess the latter, few the former. Nevertheless, 
although some had their heads cloven by the bat- 
tle-axe, or were transfixed by the arrows of the 
pagans, most of the missionaries were long-lived 
victors. 

Then began the slow and tedious task of win- 
ning our fathers from their bloodthirstiness, love 
of revenge, ignorance, debauchery, lust, and sens- 



32 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

uality, to the daily practice of the Christian vir- 
tues. It was as hard for a Teutonic as for an 
Iroquois brave to understand that the Deity does 
not love the pouring-out of iuman blood, and 
that men ought to be chaste, kind, gentle, forgiv- 
ing, and pitiful. Patiently the Christian teachers, 
by threats and appeals, persevered. Even after 
progress had been made in sweetening tempers, 
improving manners, and elevating ideas, there 
were many lapses. Men who quickly adopted the 
creed, and swore to obey the holy law of Jesus, 
found it hard to subdue their passions and ap- 
petites. Self-conquest was more difficult than 
bloody wars. 

Excellently fitted for the work required of the 
age were the monasteries. Those built at Ghent, 
Malmedy, Saint Mond, Nivelles, Mons, and in the 
forests of Ardennes and Luxembourg are among 
the most famous, but there were hundreds of 
others. The rules of the abbey required that the 
day should be spent in prayer, manual labor, and 
study. Churches grew up with the cloisters and 
became the centres of blessing and civilization to 
the regions around. To their everlasting credit, 
the monks made labor honorable, and thus per- 
suaded men to give up the trade of destroying for 
that of enriching life. They cut down the gloomy 
forests, drained the swamps, turned the wilderness 
into a garden, introduced new articles of food, 
dress, and household comforts, and thus stood in 



THE CENTURY OF THE SAINTS 33 

the vanguard of civilization. Each monastery was 
a model and object lesson to the people. 

No less courageous in obeying their Master and 
in ministering to their fellows were the Christian 
women. The nunneries became schools of self- 
denial and gentle manners. In the healing art, in 
the practice of medicine, in education, the monks 
and nuns led their age. They collected things 
strange, curious, and useful, copied ancient and 
new books, put into writing the legends, local tra- 
ditions, news, and tidings of travel from pilgrims 
and travelers, composed miracle plays, set in order 
holy pageants, and wrote chronicles of the times. 
Thus the monasteries became the cradles in which 
were nourished the beginnings of the museums 
and universities. 

Such a powerful engine of progress struck the 
imagination of people rising out of savagery and 
barbarism, exciting their wonder, compelling their 
thought, and stimulating reflection. Added to these 
were the brilliant church processions, pageants, 
and forms of worship, which, appealing to all the 
senses, dazzled a people in the infancy of their in- 
tellect. In the clash between old notions and the 
new faith, rivalry soon began for possession of 
the holy relics and patronage of things and places 
of good omen. The varied flowers of fancy, like 
the arbutus of spring, pushed their way up out of 
a soil enriched with the leaves of a fallen civiliza- 
tion, and then bloomed with rare beauty. Exceed- 



34 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ingly quaint and alluring are the legends of the 
saints, the Holy Virgin, and the men of vows. No 
country more than Belgium possesses an album of 
such pretty verbal legends and pictures on canvas, 
which illustrate, in rich colors, rather the emotions 
of the heart than the realities of history. Eubens's 
famous painting of St. Bavon is notably so. 

When it became the fashion to add monastic 
writing to folklore, the folios and chronicles, even 
in the learned monks' libraries, grew to be a ver- 
itable storehouse of things lovely to read and hear, 
but belonging rather to the realm of local pride 
and flattery than to provable truth. Some Belgian 
knights of the reed pen and inkhorn insist that it 
was on their native soil that the Emperor Con- 
stantino had his vision of the conquering cross. 
"A rare and heavenly laurel" for the Belgic 
church, indeed ! Even cathedrals, like mountains 
of blossoming stone, were built more easily in 
popular legend than by generations of toil with 
windlass and chisel, for in one story, St. Martin 
rested on a rock, which forthwith transformed 
itself into a stately minster ! 

Folklore etymology also furnishes some startling 
dramas, in which, of course, the Devil is the heavy 
villain of the play. Thus, when St. Eemacle was 
building the abbey of Stavelot, he had a donkey 
that hauled the stone. The devil, furious at hav- 
ing a holy building in his domain, changed him- 
self into a wolf and ate up the poor beast with 



THE CENTURY OF THE SAINTS 35 

long ears. To punish the evil spirit, the saint har- 
nessed the wolf to the wagon and made him work 
in place of the donkey. When the wolf arrived 
with his load at the foot of the monastery, St. 
Remade said to him, in Walloon, " Stave leu 
(Stop, wolf!)." Hence the name "Stavelot." 
Was it in memory of the martyr beast that, in 
the first brilliant era of art, the Flemings invented 
the easel, which means " little donkey " ? 

Treves, once in Belgium, became a centre of 
monastic life, and was visited by such fathers of 
the church as St. Athanasius and St. Jerome. 
Here was born St. Ambrose, afterwards of Milan, 
city of the glorious cathedral, who later excom- 
municated emperors, possibly wrote the Te Deum^ 
and enriched the music of the church. Hence the 
appropriateness of the legend, that once when he 
was a baby, asleep, a swarm of honey bees settled 
on his lips. 

In the fourth century one missionary wrote of 
successful work among the Morini savages, who 
inhabited " the extreme borders of the world beaten 
by the waves of a barbaric ocean." Another pio- 
neer herald of the cross slept in a hollow tree. 
The aisles and depths of the woods reechoed with 
the sound of psalms, for choirs of angelic men, in 
place of marauding savages, now thronged the 
churches and monasteries. In time the forest it- 
self was transmuted and idealized in the Gothic 
cathedral, with its vaulted nave, transept and 



36 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

choir, with its "high embowed roof," and with 
the stained glass that recalls the splendors of sun- 
set, seen through boughs against a sky of ravish- 
ing colors. 

Amid alternate cheer and gloom, and like the 
ebb and flow of tides, the gospel made its way and 
Belgic land seemed a promising garden of the 
faith. Then came the storms that uprooted and 
destroyed. In the fifth century the Huns and Van- 
dals invaded with fire and sword. Horrible was 
the slaughter and massacre, yet out of the mire 
of black despair sprang, like a white flower, the 
legend of St. Ursula. The British princess and 
her eleven thousand virgins, while on their pil- 
grimage to Rome, were set upon by the Huns. 
They all chose chaste death to dishonor, and to- 
day one sees in Belgium many churches dedicated 
to God in honor of St. Ursula and her white-robed 
band. 

So terrible was the devastation by the pagans 
of the fifth century that the work of Christianiz- 
ing the Franks, the peoples inhabiting the Low 
Countries, had to be begun over again. Hard 
was the task. New languages had to be learned, 
the wild country penetrated, and pagan gods of 
renown overthrown, while more tribes and fresh 
waves of Teutonic barbarism rolled out of the 
forest over the land. Nevertheless, with heroic 
constancy and in unquailing faith, the new genera- 
tion of missionaries toiled on. 



THE CENTURY OF THE SAINTS 37 

No different was the work of the gospel then 
than now, or in ages before, nor were the obstacles 
really different; for the problems of Christian 
civilization are not geographical, but human. In 
spite of their savagery, the war-loving Franks 
possessed noble traits of manhood, and in their 
social system lay the germs of a life which, in its 
flower, was to be nobler than that of Rome or 
Greece. St. Eloi, St. Amand, St. Bavon, St. Flor- 
bert, St. Humbert, and others won steady success. 
Despite the cruelty of the heathen men and the 
jeers of their women, the gospel bearers toiled on. 
Gradually steady industry took the place of no- 
madism and war. 

Of course many of the wonders accomplished 
were called "miracles." In the telling of stories 
about the powers exerted and triumphs wrought, 
the avalanche, and not the melting snow, was the 
symbol. In time, the proverb " Good doctrine 
needs no miracle " was more to the front. By the 
eighth century all Belgic land was at least nomin- 
ally Christian. Usually the monastery was the 
seed of a large city. Around its walls gathered in- 
dustry and population. In the once trackless for- 
ests and wild wildernesses, there came to be towns 
and villages where, instead of the cries of wild 
beasts, rose songs of praise and chants of joy. 

Having thus received from Italy the rudiments 
of the Christian religion, the Belgic peoples grew 
up in the fold of the one church, whose chief ruler 



38 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

dwelt in the ancient capital of the Koman emper- 
ors. Until the sixteenth century they never knew 
of any other form of religion except that which, 
in its frame of government, contains the spirit of 
the ancient empire, whose principles were order, 
subordination, and discipline. Its dogmatic teach- 
ings were enforced by civil authority. Of the 
bishoprics, one of the oldest, founded at Liege, 
became a state, which existed for a thousand years, 
outside of the main current of Belgic history, re- 
maining independent both of the Burgundian unity 
and of the religious wars of the sixteenth century. 
We shall glance at the history of Li^ge in the 
course of our narrative. 

In the story of Christianity in the Low Coun- 
tries four periods are noted: from 30 to 313 A.D., 
or to Constantine's edict of toleration; to 867, 
when the Greek and Latin churches were sepa- 
rated; to 1517, when the church was divided into 
the Reformed and the Roman ; and from 1517 to 
the present day, during which last period the Bel- 
gian people have overwhelmingly followed the 
Roman order of ritual, doctrine, and worship. 



CHAPTER V 

CHARLEMAGNE AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 

Many forces, like hammers striking the heated 
bar upon an anvil, have beaten the Belgian nation 
into shape. After the first-coming Franks looms 
the great personality of Charlemagne (a.d. 742- 
814), who stands as the link between the Roman 
Empire and feudalism. It was his work to guide 
Anglo-Saxon savagery, when it issued as in a flood 
eastward from the forest beyond the Rhine, and 
to lead our ancestors into a new world of order 
and beauty. He reclaimed the regions between 
Russia and the Atlantic Ocean to civilization. To 
this end he utilized in full measure the church, the 
school, the Roman jurisprudence, and the native 
forms of law and justice, while never neglecting 
the sword. His dream was of a world-realm and a 
world-religion, of a universal church and a uni- 
versal empire. 

Although we associate the name of Charlemagne 
most closely with France and Germany, yet it is one 
to conjure with among the Netherlanders, in both 
north and south. While the place of his birth is not 
certainly known, Belgium claims him as her son, 
asserting that he was born in Liege, where an eques- 
trian statue of him stands in the Place d'Avroy, 



40 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

The great Frankish emperor ruled from A.D. 
768 to 814. On the north and east he subdued the 
Frisians and Saxons. In the south he made the 
Lombards, the Saracens, the Hunnish Avars, and 
the Slavic Wends acknowledge his authority. 

Charlemagne lived in an age of constant war- 
fare. The new Europe was rising on the ruins of 
the old Roman Empire. The Franks had to hold 
their own along three menaced frontiers. West- 
ward, on the side of Germany, the Saxons and 
Angles were among the fiercest and most brutal 
of forest warriors. Against the fleets of maraud- 
ers, who, from Denmark, Scandinavia, and the 
frozen North, ploughed the waves, there was plenty 
to do. On the south the Saracens were hostile and 
aflame with newborn zeal. Infant Christianity and 
civilization might have been trampled in the mire 
under the feet of savage Teutons, devastating 
Norsemen, or fanatical Mussulmans, except for the 
energy of the great Charles, who in person con- 
ducted fifty-three military expeditions on a large 
scale. He fought the Saxons, as much to abolish 
their fetishism and devil-worship — as cruel and 
odious as anything known in Central Africa — as 
for anything else, and we are thankful that he 
did. Charlemagne was so successful that Chris- 
tianized Germany and her warlike races became 
in time an impregnable bulwark against the in- 
vasion of the Asiatic hordes. To-day at Aix-la- 
Chapelle the fane that holds the great man's dust 



CHARLEMAGNE 41 

is daily crowded with grateful worshipers of the 
God whom he commended to their ancestors. 

Yet while defending his empire against dangers 
from the south and east, the great Charles was 
never fully able to roll back the tide of northern 
desolation that came upon his empire through the 
Vikings. He built many boats at Boulogne and 
Ghent, but neither his shipwrights nor his sailors 
were at first able to compete with the fast-dart- 
ing, dragon-prowed vessels of the Norse warriors, 
piloted by the raven, that had keels as well as 
sails, oars, and winged guides. 

Pagan Rome being dead. Church and State 
were united in the mighty man, when the Pope, 
on Christmas Day, 800, in the Eternal City, placed 
a golden crown upon his head. Then the Holy 
Eoman Empire was formed, which was to endure 
for a thousand years, and under which, the Church 
and the Empire, Europe was to develop. 

Charles would have willingly made Frankish, 
or German, the language of the government, and 
the new empire and German institutions the ba- 
sis of society, but the obstacles were too great. 
The languages, except Latin, were as yet too rude. 
So this tongue of ancient Italy, which gave the 
hierarchy at Rome such tremendous reinforce- 
ment, was made by Carolus Magnus the language 
of the church, of education, and of civilization. 
Hitherto, or at least for five centuries, from Ire- 
land to Alexandria, Greek had been the church 



42 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

language. The Koman tongue became the basis 
of culture, and most of the educated men in 
Christendom made use of it. All learning, the 
Bible, and public worship were in Latin, around 
which gathered tender, holy, and precious associ- 
ations of life, from the cradle to the tomb. 

So true was this that when, in the sixteenth 
century, the Greek New Testament, Greek theo- 
logy, and early Christian history were recovered, 
the men of Latin mind and culture looked askance 
at what they called the " new " doctrine and '' her- 
esy," when what confronted Europe was primi- 
tive, rather than mediaeval or Roman. The " new " 
learning and forms of religion were really so old 
as to seem novel and dangerous. 

It is interesting to notice the cities in the Nether- 
lands (Nymegen) and Belgium (Mons) which are 
most closely associated with the name of Charle- 
magne, Carl der Grosse, or Karel de Groot, as he 
is called in French, German, and Dutch, respec- 
tively. The city of his sepulture, a.d. 814, is Aix- 
la-Chapelle, in Germany. 

The Belgians award vast honors to the great 
Charles, more especially because, over a thousand 
years before the unity and independence of 1830, 
he took measures which led ultimately to Bel- 
gium's sovereignty and her place in the modern 
world. He made his Belgic realm an independent 
circuit of the Holy Roman Empire, virtually map- 
ping out the provinces. In his time Belgium's 



CHARLEMAGNE «3 

great cities took [their beginnings, Tournay prob- 
ably being the first. Of the origin of the name 
of Antwerp we have already heard. 

At Brugge, or the bridge, over the little river 
Eeye, a stockade, or castle, was built, in which 
Charlemagne's lieutenant, Baldwin of the Iron 
Arm, watched for the Norsemen and from which 
he sallied out to fight them. Gradually from the 
" bridge-money," or tolls, the castle-lord grew 
rich, while around its walls, where traders could 
get protection, grew up the famous City of the 
Bridge, or Bruges. Being built on twenty-six 
islets, it was long called the Venice of the North. 

Baldwin was also the imperial forester, charged 
with the care and breeding of the hawks and fal- 
cons used in the hunting of birds in the air. 
Like so many other pleasant things introduced 
from the Orient, falconry, which excited as much 
popular interest as aviation does in our day, was 
much liked by the ladies of mediaeval days. 
From the occupation of the woodman came the 
family name de Forest, — so well known in the 
Netherlands and America. 

From the stockade, or castle, near the great 
marsh, that is, the hroeh^ or morass (the same 
word as in Brooklyn), and sole^ or edge, came the 
name of Belgium's capital and most beautiful 
city, Brussels. Ghent, or Gant, meaning " glove," 
was also one of Baldwin's naval stations, formed 
to resist the Norsemen. The grim mediaeval struc- 



41 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ture called the " castle of the Counts of Flanders," 
still one of the sights in Ghent, was first begun 
by him, its space and massive walls being en- 
larged later. Courtrai, Ypres, Liege, Mons, and 
other nuclei of great cities, about this time be- 
coming visible as dots on the landscape, began to 
have names and a recognized place on the map. 
In time, following fortification, which was the 
first necessity of safety and prosperity, came in- 
dustry, art, and architecture. Then — what was 
deemed indispensable to popular religion in the 
Middle Ages — arose the fane containing the bones, 
or other saints' relics, which were as magnets to 
draw myriads of pilgrims, who brought money 
within the gates. With such " attractions," or to 
obtain the possession of fresh incentives to piety 
of this sort, the young municipalities soon grew 
hot with rivalry. 

The long records of Charlemagne's battles and 
his transplanting of tribes as colonies to Belgic 
soil compels thought. When one thinks of Bel- 
gium, from the time of Caesar so richly fertilized 
with human blood that in the multitudinous 
mediaeval combats the sluices were choked with 
dead bodies and the morasses shone red in the 
morning sun, and remembers that in modern days 
the land was so often fought over that it has been 
called " the cockpit of Europe," one wonders 
whether, in the view of scientific agriculture, this 
enrichment of the land by human corpses has not 



CHARLEMAGNE 45 

been a possible factor in the preservation of its 
astonishing fertility. Lowell tells of what may 
" deepen pansies for a year or two," but Belgium 
is green, in spots, at least, because the men of 
to-day " are but a handful to the tribes that 
slumber in its bosom." Most of the bloodiest of 
these battles were fought by aliens, contending 
one against another, — battles in which the sons 
of the soil had themselves little or no interest. 
Yet it is also true that many a victory and dis- 
aster, that left the ground strewn with the slain, 
arose from civil strife which indicated and illus- 
trated local pride, prejudice, and selfishness, 
rather than national patriotism. 

Still the Belgians in every age — whether sav- 
ages, with those strange Romanized names which 
we find in Caesar's pages, Franks, mediaeval Bra- 
banters, Limburgers, or the modern Flemings or 
Walloons — have grappled with the invader, have 
revolted against the oppressor, have driven off the 
alien, or have suffered under him. History ex- 
plains the tenacity with which the man of the Low 
Countries clings to his nationality and native soil, 
for in his veins runs the blood of many lines and 
varieties of men, from the days of the Nervii. 
In our own century, when powerful empires are 
swallowing up little countries, when ancient states 
are reduced to mere geographical expressions, and 
old nations are absorbed in militant imperialism, 
we are apt to think there can be no real patriot- 



46 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

isin in a " buffer " and bilingual country like 
Belgium. Yet that is because we ignore the roots 
of history. The story of the Walloons and Flem- 
ings in Belgium explains this unique picture in 
the life of Europe. Since the great war of 1914, 
we salute " Brave Little Belgium." 

Let us now look at the origin of the English 
form of the names for the men of southern and 
of northern Belgium, — " Walloons " and " Flem- 
ings." Changes of sound and of letters in differ- 
ent languages, according to place or climate, fol- 
low a law of phonetics. The g of Latin countries 
becomes w in the North, and Gaul and Wales are 
virtually the same word. The people who became 
the modern Germans and English spoke of the 
Gauls and Romans as WealaSy or " strangers," 
and their term oon meant " one." A Walloon 
meant, then, a " strange one," or a " foreign 
man." We have the same form in " Wallachia," 
"Waal," "Welsh," and "walnut," possibly in 
" Wallabout," and some other American names. 

Flanders, the home of the Flemish, or Flemings, 
is found mentioned first in a life of St. Eloi, 
written in 678. It was long the English name for 
the whole of Belgium. It means the " Land of the 
Refugees," that is, of the fugitives from the Ger- 
man forests further east, and had been developed 
from the root word meaning " to flee." Fleming 
was formerly pronounced with the e long, Flem- 
ing. In old English law, flemen meant a man 



CHARLEMAGNE 47 

who had fled from justice, and flemens-firth^ the 
harboring of a fugitive. In Scott's poem '' The 
Lay of the Last Minstrel," the noble dame shel- 
tering William of Deloraine is accused of mak- 
ing her " towers a flemens-firth." Firth, of old, 
meant the woods, in which men hid. The law 
concerning flemens-firth was one that grew up 
among forest men, as our Teutonic ancestors 
were. 

Sir Walter's pen was more in accord with facts 
when depicting Scottish life than in imagining, 
or transferring from Commines, the Belgian chron- 
icler, pictures of Walloon life at LiSge ; for he 
makes his hero, Quentin Durward, and even the 
people of southern Belgic land, talk Flemish, when 
that archer of the Scottish guard in the service of 
Louis XI and these people at LiSge knew only 
French, or Walloon. Taine is almost as amusing 
when he designates as " corrupt French " what is 
virtually the ancient speech of Gaul. It is true 
that the Walloon patois is still current among the 
country folk of the southern provinces of Belgium, 
and in those adjacent parts of France and Ger- 
many which were once Belgian ; but since the fif- 
teenth century most Walloons have spoken French, 
as do the vast majority of the living three or four 
millions. A few thousand Walloons in Germany 
speak German. 

The Flemings, however, still stoutly maintain 
their hereditary tongue, not only using it in daily 



48 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

speech, but fixing it in a noble literature. Shall 
we say that the Flemings form, and have ever 
formed, the dominant element in the history and 
life of the land now called Belgium ? 



CHAPTER VI 

THE VEEDUN COMPACT 

The death of Charlemagne was the point at 
which formal feudalism began. The magnitude of 
the frontier successes of the three great Carlovin- 
gians, Charles Martel, Pepin, and Charlemagne, 
helped to precipitate a crisis, causing the dissolu- 
tion of the imperial unity and separation of the 
nationalities ; or, as seen in long perspective, the 
beginning of the evolution of the modern men 
now called Germans, Dutch, French, Italians, 
Spanish, English, etc. The physics of history as 
well as of astronomy show the working of the 
centripetal and the centrifugal. Charlemagne 
represented the former, his descendants the latter 
principle. 

One common fear, of outward enemies, — Ar- 
abs, forest savages, northern pirates, and Asiatic 
hordes, — had compelled the various sorts of men 
in Charlemagne's empire to stand together and 
fight as one host. Now, this general feeling had 
passed away. The frontiers were safe. Instead of 
expending their energies on foreign campaigns, 
the returned chiefs of the long expeditions, en- 
riched by their plunder and weary of far distant 
wars, began to think more of work at home. The 



50 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

new tasks were to strengthen their own districts, 
to tighten the bonds of union and dependence, and 
to define the relations between themselves and the 
people over whom they ruled. In a word, local 
authority gradually superseded the centralized 
administration of the emperor. Our nomad an- 
cestors ceased their migrations, gave up their old 
habits of life in tents and wagons, and settled 
down to till the soil and create industry. 

Land, instead of being for the most part un- 
measured and unknown as private property, or 
owned only in common within the mark, began to 
be measured, valued, and held in private owner- 
ship. In theory, the king was the land's lord. In 
practice, and increasingly, the local ruler, duke, 
marquis, baron, who knew his acres and jealously 
guarded them, became the master in a graded se- 
ries of reality. The tendency was to make the 
title of the local magistrate hereditary, while the 
tillers of the soil gradually came under the con- 
trol of the castle lord, until their status was but 
little higher than that of serfs, though not a few 
of them remained franklins, or freeholders. 

As castle-building became a fine art, and the 
powers of defense prevailed over the powers of 
attack, the castle, not the camp, became the index 
of the new civilization. Nowhere, except possibly 
in France, did feudalism strike its roots more 
firmly and display more vigor, complexity, and 
variety than among the Flemings and Walloons, 



THE VERDUN COMPACT 51 

Nevertheless, it was first on Belgic soil that large 
bodies of men in northern Europe turned from 
agriculture to manufactures, so that industrialism 
came here sooner than elsewhere in Europe. This 
new economic force tempered the power of the 
feudal masters, so that, instead of individual vas- 
sals, the counts or lords of the land had to be con- 
tent with collective vassalage, or the nominal sub- 
ordination of men organized in mass and able to 
make their voice heard and their will known. No- 
where else in Europe was there such a significant 
parallel development of industrialism and com- 
merce. 

One outstanding event in the story of the evo- 
lution of modern men and nations was the Treaty 
of Verdun (on the Maas River and now in France) 
in A.D. 843. Then the three grandsons of Charle- 
magne, Charles, Lothair, and Louis, ceasing their 
strife, divided the ancestral estate, one taking 
Gaul, which became France ; another Germany ; 
and the third, Lothairia, afterwards Lorraine. 
This intermediate state, the longest and narrowest 
strip and the only one that included the Alps, 
extended from the Tiber to the North Sea. Almost 
as a geographical matter of course this central 
strip, the portion belonging to Lothair, passed 
through more permutations and combinations, re- 
sulting in a greater variety of men, languages, 
and nationalities, than either or both of the other 
two divisions. 



62 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

The land of the Belgae, by the Verdun compact, 
was divided into two unequal parts, the larger, 
which touched the frontiers of Germany, being 
in the kingdom of Lothair, the smaller in that of 
France, the domain of Charles. In spite of this 
division the Belgic peoples kept up a certain 
unity, largely arising from local customs and 
less from rulers and dynasties. It was on this 
rock of the people — this persistence of Belgic 
spirit and tradition — that many an emperor, 
king, duke, count, and republican, from Lothair 
to Bonaparte, and from Verdun to Waterloo, 
fell, often to his complete undoing. Yet after all 
these warning examples. King William of Holland 
stumbled on the same stone. 

This act of dismemberment of Charlemagne*s 
great empire, in 843, worked to keep France and 
Germany apart, and created the central state 
which finally became Belgium. Charlemagne, the 
Duke of Burgundy, van Artevelde, Charles V, 
William of Orange, all wrought for what the 
unionists of 1830 ultimately achieved. Those who 
understood the people, cooperating in their inter- 
est, succeeded best, making themselves factors in 
the final and glorious result. 

No view of historical evolution in western Eu- 
rope can ignore the date and the doings at Ver- 
dun in 843 A.D., for then and there began the 
evolution of the modern men and of the lan- 
guages and nations that to-day we associate with 



THE VERDUN COMPACT 63 

the names of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, 
Netherlands, England, and Belgium. There would 
have been no such England, mother of parliaments, 
of ever glorious name, as we know to-day, nor the 
Flemish communes, which tamed despots, had 
there been no division by Charlemagne's descend- 
ants. 

That intermediate state, created at Verdun, 
changing its name and that of its parts often and 
variously, became for ten centuries the cause of 
endless contention and covetous strife between 
the other two inheritors of Charlemagne's once 
vast empire, that fell to pieces within the space of 
a century. For " Taisho ni tane ga nashi^^^ as- 
serts the Japanese proverb, — " There is no seed 
to a great man." Charlemagne had no successors 
that measured up to him in abilities. One writer 
says, "The newly revived empire was too large 
for one hand and not large enough for three." 
The central kingdom was ever the perpetual ob- 
ject of covetousness to the two others. Invasion 
from France and Germany became chronic. The 
fortunes of war diminished its extent. It was di- 
vided and re-divided, and its fragments were cast 
from one side to the other. In our own genera- 
tion we have seen the lowered flags of Alsace and 
Lorraine and their monuments in Paris loaded 
with funeral immortelles and decked with em- 
blems of woe. " Annexed " is the word that in 
Europe has broken innumerable hearts of patriots 



54 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

during many centuries. Nevertheless, despite sucli 
bitter experiences often repeated, the Belgse and 
their land perdured even to the shock of 1914. 

One historian has traced to this oath at Verdun 
the sufficing explanation of the bilingualism of 
Belgium, for the wording of the oaths constitutes 
the most ancient known monument of the Wal- 
loon or Eomance tongue, which was to serve as 
the transition between the dying Latin and the 
French about to be born. This Walloon speech is 
not " corrupted French." It is a branch of the 
primitive Gallic, or langue d^o'il. In its mediaeval 
form, it was born directly from the Latin, the 
German and Celtic elements now found in it 
having only a very secondary part. 

In the northern Belgic provinces, Flemish, a 
Tudesque or Teutonic idiom, has remained in use. 
The Latin tongue became the common language 
in Gaul and passed into French, but in Belgic 
land the more northern people, being far less 
under the influence of Eoman ideas and continu- 
ally reinforced by Germans, kept this Flemish or 
Tudesque language persistently. The greater part 
of the veterans of Clovis, who were Franks or Ger- 
mans, settled along the banks of the Khine and 
the Maas. Later, the colonies transplanted by 
Charlemagne into Flanders and Brabant kept up 
the use of the Flemish tongue, making it persist- 
ent to this day, when it has, what the Walloon 
does not possess, a comparatively voluminous litera- 




THE INDUSTRIOUS WALLOONS 



THE VERDUN COMPACT 65 

ture. From Henri Conscience to Maeterlinck, the 
Flemish authors have been a force in modern lit- 
erary history. 

Feudalism, in the view of some writers, made 
its definite commencement June 14, 877 a.d., 
through what has been called its great charter, the 
edict of Quierzy-sur-Oise, promulgated before a 
great concourse of lords. By this document, how- 
ever, governors and representatives of the king 
{ruward and stadholder) were guaranteed, rather 
than established in their stations as a personal right. 
The writing did not definitely declare that fiefs 
could be transmitted to their posterity by vassals. 
That custom grew up gradually. The principle of 
heredity, by which the sons of counts could also be 
counts, was essential to the prolonged continuance 
of feudalism, giving strength and stability to the 
system, but it was not fixed by any one legislative 
text. As in Japan, feudalism developed out of 
necessities as they arose. 

At the same time the church magnates asserted 
themselves in the domain of politics, adding secu- 
lar privileges to religious, and holding ignorant 
laymen in terror by the awful penalties of inter- 
dict and excommunication. A transfer of power 
was effected from the field of battle to the coun- 
cil chamber, and the pen became mightier than 
the sword. The monk, who knew how to write, had 
a vast advantage over his illiterate brother in 
armor. Feudalism in Japan, even to details, in- 



56 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

eluding the wielding of the sword of the bishop in 
armor, followed almost exactly the same evolution 
as in Europe. 

The first great families of the feudal period are 
called Belgian "princes" in the "chronicles," the 
books and the men being nearly contemporaneous. 
One of the first was that of Regnier (a.d. 915), 
the Count of Hainault, Charlemagne having al- 
ready made Mons its capital. After a line of five 
Eegniers, six Baldwins, four Williams, and three 
countesses, including Jacqueline of Bavaria, the 
house of Hainault was merged in that of Burgundy 
in 1433. 

Another feudal family took root in Flanders, 
where lay the more vigorous germ of national feel- 
ing and life, because these Flemish counts, more 
strictly Belgian in feeling, were not under the 
shadow of that higher imperial supremacy which 
from Germany controlled and checked national 
development in Lorraine, Burgundy, Spain, and 
Austria during ten centuries. The valley of the 
lower Scheldt and its marshy neighborhood in the 
north were put by Charlemagne and his successors 
under royal officers, called Foresters, Baldwin 
of the Iron Arm being perhaps the most famous. 

In one sense this Baldwin may be called the 
creator of Normandy, whence the Normans invaded 
England. He defended the Flemish coast so vigor- 
ously that the Northmen were compelled to go 
farther west and south, away from the Belgic 



THE VERDUN COMPACT 57 

coasts, and to settle in France. The Count of Flan- 
ders, first nominated marquis, that is, mark-grave, 
or Count of the Frontier, had his title made hered- 
itary in 877, and this first countship is probably 
the oldest in Europe. After a line of twenty-six 
rulers who bore the title, the house was merged in 
that of Burgundy in 1419. 

The second Count of Flanders, son of Iron Arm, 
married Elstred, daughter of the English King, 
Alfred the Great. This marriage inaugurated that 
close connection between Belgium and Great Brit- 
ain which has so profoundly influenced both coun- 
tries, making them often allies in the same cause, 
during both mediaeval and modern times, and has 
aided in the domination of Anglo-continental poli- 
tics, even down to this year of grace. 

That new system of society, called Feudalism, 
which was based on the tenure of land, in which 
there was no primitive democracy as in the forest, 
but in which there were, roughly speaking, only 
two classes of society, the landed and the landless, 
proceeded even to the development of chivalry and 
the crusades. Those bound to the landowners by 
loyalty and personal service were knights or 
squires, and these, with the monks and priests, 
had social position. The mass of the people were 
held to the soil as tillers, laborers, or serfs, with 
few or no privileges and no rights which armed 
men were bound to respect. These adscripti glehce^ 
or persons written down as belonging to the soil, 



58 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

to be transferred with the sale or ownership of the 
land to new lords, who dictated their duties, re- 
ligion, and forms of obedience, had no family 
names until the fourteenth and later centuries. 

On its outward and spectacular side, and as it 
is set forth in poetry, romance, and the drama, 
which are full of haloed saints and valorous he- 
roes, lovely princesses, stately ladies, and tender 
swains, and as seen on the stage in the splendors 
of chivalry and the decorations of heraldry, feud- 
alism "wins a glory from its being far,'' but it was 
a terrible thing for common humanity. No Frois- 
sart, Commines, or Walter Scott, soaring poet or 
brilliant stage-actor, has presented fully its dark 
side, or depicted the horrors of the feudal era. 
Notwithstanding that this social system taught 
universally both the value of land and labor and 
the law of contract, and was thus, in so far, a stage 
of progress in the evolution of the race in the in- 
terval between the primitive forest and the rich 
city, and between unbridled individualism and 
constitutional law, feudalism meant misery for the 
multitude and privilege for the few. Its most an- 
cient parable is read in the story of the Golden 
Fleece, in which the processes from savage nature 
to civilization are taught in thrilling story and 
lovely symbol. In our brief space we shall see out- 
flowering from it not only chivalrous knighthood 
and the campaigns of the cross, but also the Order 
of the Golden Fleece, which created fresh privi- 



THE VERDUN COMPACT 59 

leges for a few landlords, while it tended to defi- 
ance of the law for the commoner by his unscrupu- 
lous superiors. 

Feudalism in Europe, as in China and Japan, 
was once the organizer of society and the nurse of 
enterprise and heroism. When, however, it set 
itself against the aspirations of humanity, it was 
doomed. Like other forms of life in both Church 
and State, it was bound to wither and die when 
it ceased to bring forth fruits meet for the age 
and the ages ; for the good is ever the enemy of 
the best. 



CHAPTER VII 

FEUDALISM AND INDUSTRY 

At an early era in the Low Countries the loom 
and the shuttle were, in potency, greater than the 
steel blade and battle-axe, for it was industry that 
steadily won the battle of civic freedom. Wealth, 
gained through diligence and skill, purchased or 
compelled chartered privileges which in time be- 
came popular rights. The municipalities of Flan- 
ders led the van in Europe for self-government. 

In their rivalry the Flemings were far in ad- 
vance of the Walloons, and, in the ordered free- 
dom of their citizens, kept ahead in noble emu- 
lation. As early as 960 a.d., there were cloth 
markets established. The charter of Grammont, in 
1068, made settled business and commerce possi- 
ble. Other cloth towns sprang up rapidly, and 
after the year 1000 these strongholds of citizen- 
ship multiplied. Privileged men in armor might 
destroy the democratic guilds, and occasionally 
burn and raze a city and kill its people by thou- 
sands, but they could not root out the ideas under- 
lying the people's hopes. From the first, the burg, 
or city, was the hope of democracy. In Belgium, 
that hope has borne noble fruit. 

The credit for this gain of humanity belongs 



FEUDALISM AND INDUSTRY 61 

not merely to the burghers, with their natural 
qualities of steadiness and sturdiness, but is in part 
due to the character of the men and women of the 
ruling family in Flanders, which, from the first 
Baldwin (864-879) of the ninth century, placed 
itself in the forefront of progress. The story of 
the Baldwins at home, on the battlefields of the 
Empire, and in the crusades, is one which in its 
main outlines touches the imagination of painter, 
poet, and sculptor. The Belgian of to-day looks 
back upon the achievements of these men, who 
were born on the soil, with a sense of exulta- 
tion. Within the measure of their light and know- 
ledge, these lords of the land led the progress of 
mankind. They defended their coasts against the 
Norse pirates, understood the needs of their peo- 
ple, encouraged the wool trade with England, and 
traced out a broad line of policy that meant gen- 
eral prosperity for all classes. The dynasty of the 
Counts of Flanders, lasting from 864 until the 
time of Philip the Good, 1420, is one ever to be 
remembered with honor and pride in Belgium. 

Notwithstanding their unfortunate geographical 
situation, between two rival great nations, on a 
flat plain which was not militarily defensible, and 
in the face of the highest powers of feudalism 
both warlike and ecclesiastical, the Belgians won 
liberty and prosperity. Having no mountains, — 
one of the " voices of freedom," as Wordsworth 
says, — they turned to the beckoning sea. In re- 



62 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

pelling the Norsemen, they became trained sailors 
and in time adventurous sea-traders. The Flem- 
ish flotillas were seen in many seas, and later even 
surprised Venice. At the call of need, in 1066, 
they transported the army of William the Con- 
queror across the Channel. In 1127 the first 
large mercantile fleet fitted out north of the Medi- 
terranean, and numbering two hundred ships, set 
sail from Flanders for the Italian cities. There- 
from began mutually quickening influences, and 
Italy paid back in art inspiration what she gained 
from Belgic land in textiles and local products. 
The Belgians have, more than once, celebrated in 
pageant and allegory their debt to Italy. The 
Flemings have furnished us, also, with much of 
our own naval vocabulary. 

Within two hundred years after the oath at 
Verdun — a notable point of time in the evolu- 
tion of Europe — we can see that the Belgic wedge, 
between France and Germany, was in its main 
features that of modern Belgium. There were two 
races, with two languages, but the characteristics 
of each were much what they are to-day. The 
Fleming, but slightly moulded by Roman civiliza- 
tion, solid in physical strength, alert and intelli- 
gent, was forward in the enterprises of industry 
and commerce. In material prosperity, having the 
richer soil and the inexhaustible sea, and in ma- 
terial civilization, he was ahead of the Walloon, 
and in food, drink, dress and habits, love of pomp 



FEUDALISM AND INDUSTRY 63 

and display, more liberal, even to ostentation. All 
this Is seen in Flemish art, which is the true mirror 
of his life. 

The Walloon, of Celtic stock, was more suscep- 
tible to Roman civilization and less inclined to 
shape events than to let them shape him, withal 
holding a closer sentiment of union and loyalty to 
the Church. If he was more abstemious and less 
given to ostentation, It was from no lack of desire 
for material enjoyment, but because of his more 
slender resources. The metallic wealth of modern 
days was still undreamed of, yet industry was the 
law of the Walloon's life as of the Fleming's. 

To epitomize, the Roman dominion having 
passed away, society in Christendom had first to 
defend itself against Its external enemies, — man 
as invader, and nature in the wave, the forest, and 
the desert. When these dangers vanished, the re- 
action began Inwardly. Private ownership of land, 
in place of communal possession of the soil, be- 
came the rule. Whether obtained through the 
forms of law or by the exertion of personality, 
more or less scrupulous or violent, by craft of 
pen or might of sword, the possession of land was 
the chief factor in feudalism. 

That form of society which is based on owner- 
ship of the soil, and called the feudal system, 
grew up gradually. There were many factors com- 
pelling Its evolution : the attack of the Norsemen, 
the weakness of kings at the centre of power and 



64 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

the ambition of nobles at a distance, the change 
in economic systems and the increase of the 
powers of local defense over those of assault, 
when thick walls defied engines of war. It was a 
social system in which all who had the least pre- 
tensions to gentle birth assumed position and priv- 
ilege as knights or owners of the soil, while the 
commoners who were strongest physically became 
liegemen, or men-at-arms. The males ablest in 
body were chosen for war, but beneath these were 
the serfs and slaves, who, unarmed, untrained, 
ill-fed, and meanly housed, remained passive. 
The knights repelled invaders, punished robbers, 
kept order, and enjoyed honors and privileges, 
while the mass of the inhabitants had no rights 
which armed men respected. The church and the 
monastery, usually, in both theory and fact, were 
the protectors of the people, but there were often 
sad exceptions, for monks and priests coveted 
land, wealth, luxury, and power like the laymen 
in armor. Nowhere was government severer than 
in the bishopric of Li^ge. 

In a word, there was one active division of so- 
ciety, including those given to arms and to war 
and the men of the cloister, with such rude cul- 
ture as the times permitted, while the other divi- 
sion, consisting of toilers, was simply laboring 
and passive. Fighting was neither the duty nor 
the privilege of the lower classes, who were kept 
slavishly obedient to the rule of force. In the cas- 



FEUDALISM AND INDUSTRY 65 

tie the woman of the forest became a gentler creat- 
ure, even while she gained a finer social strength. 
Sedentary occupation made her accomplished. 
The lord of the stronghold was the loaf -provider 
and his wife the loaf-divider. In time these terms 
were shortened into " lord " and " lady." 

As in English history, Eunnymede is a name 
and a place that stand as landmarks on the way 
to modern freedom, so in the story of Belgian lib- 
erty the names Grammont, for the triumph of civil 
rights, and Cassel, for victory in arms, loom aloft 
like the belfry of Bruges. The Flemish name of 
Grammont (which is Walloon in its form, as 
usually written) is Gheeraards-bergen. This re- 
veals its etymology of Gherardi Mons, or Girard's 
Mont, or Hill. It is in East Flanders on the river 
Dender. 

Count Baldwin VI, in the year 1068, purchased, 
for the Flemings, the estate of Baron Gerard, 
and, laying it out as a town, granted the towns- 
men a charter of civil rights. This, so far as 
known, is the oldest document of the kind in Eu- 
rope. It was written 137 years before the Latin 
document Magna Charta, and 185 years before 
the Middelburg charter, which is in plain Dutch. 
It substituted law for force, and arbitration for le- 
galized murder in battle. It marks the beginning 
of guaranteed order and protection to the indust- 
rial classes in Belgic land. Grammont is a spot 
to which the pilgrim-student, and especially the 



66 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF AKT 

American lover of human progress, should wend 
his way for thought and thankfulness. As we shall 
see, the Flemings were able to defend their char- 
tered rights when trampled upon. 

In Belgic land, as elsewhere, whether in ancient 
China, mediseval Japan, or Europe, feudalism, or 
minutely divided authority, as against a weak 
central power, caused striking changes in the 
landscape, making it an affair of hundreds of 
strongholds, castles, towers, and fortified monas- 
teries, but also of tens of thousands of huts and 
hovels filled with poor toilers. Yet it was in the 
southern or Belgic Netherlands, first in Europe, 
that these tenants emerged as an industrial class 
able to modify the will and power of the land's 
lord. The skilled workmen and traders made 
themselves, more in form than in fact, the vassals 
of their counts, who were compelled to recognize 
unions in this true " labor war." Within two cen- 
turies and a half after the Verdun compact, or- 
ganized industry had become a power with which 
knights had to reckon at Cassel, in 1071. The 
French force consisted of men-at-arms and other 
retainers of the baronial chiefs of France, but in 
Belgic territory common wage-earners faced these 
favorites of fortune and the men of privilege. 

In its origin this uprising was a revolt against 
a harsh and cruel woman ruler, Eichildis, the 
Countess of Hainault and widow of Baldwin VI. 
Civil war broke out, during which she, defying 



FEUDALISM AND INDUSTRY 67 

the civil law, to which her late husband and other 
nobles had sworn, having the aid of the King of 
France, imagined herself immune against Flem- 
ings of every sort. When the townsmen petitioned 
for their chartered rights, she ordered the delega- 
tion to instant execution. The Flemings took up 
arms. Count Robert of Flanders, who took the 
part of the Grammont people, was compelled to 
fly, for the Bishop of Utrecht — incensed at a 
popular charter that limited the rights of the 
Church — and the Duke of Brabant were with 
Eichildis and against the commoners. The armed 
forces confronted each other in February, 1071, at 
Cassel, or Castle, a town on a hill over five hun- 
dred feet high, formerly the stronghold of the 
Menapii, and the site of many ancient, mediaeval, 
and modern battles. It formerly belonged to 
Flanders, but is now in Normandy, France. 

This struggle, in which plain townsmen were to 
prove their ability, thus early, to maintain their 
rights by personal courage on the field of blood, 
lasted two days, February 22 and 23. In their 
fortified camp, the Count and his Flemings were 
attacked by the allies, clerical and lay. The for- 
tunes of war on the first day were about equal. 
On the second, the French retreated, and the 
Flemings were left masters of the hill and victors 
on the field. " Street men " had held their own 
against mounted knights and men-at-arms. The 
men who lived in a town under law, guaranteed by 



68 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

a charter, were no longer serfs, peasants, liegemen, 
or retainers, but burghers or citizens. In arms they 
had shown themselves worthy of their freedom. 

Eichildis, beaten at Cassel, as we have seen, 
bargained with the Bishop of LiSge and gained 
his support by pledging to him her whole province, 
thus making the castle of Mons his fief. But be- 
fore the allies could gather together, Eobert made 
a descent on Mons and crushed the army of Eich- 
ildis. The slaughter was so great that this second 
battle was named the " Hedge of the Dead." It 
was characteristic of the age, in the afterthought 
of both rivals, that Eichildis, after one more de- 
feat, should retire into a convent, to die ten years 
later, and that Eobert of Flanders should make a 
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 

Shortly after this the Tribunal of Peace was 
formed, and the Truce of God was proclaimed 
from Liege. The right to carry arms in public was 
limited, and the use of all weapons from Friday 
until Tuesday, in Lent, and during the intervals 
between certain church days, was forbidden. The 
necessity of such a law for all classes, enforced by 
all the penalties of the church, may be imagined 
from the fact that in Ghent alone there were 
twelve hundred murders in one year. "*Kill,' 
*Kil],' lay ever on the mediaeval Fleming's lips," 
says Busken Huet, who speaks of this " nation of 
butchers rejoicing in the carrying-out of butch- 
eries." 



FEUDALISM AND INDUSTRY 69 

This was the age also of the ordeal and the judi- 
cial duel. Those who would not respond to the 
summons of the Tribunal of Peace were declared, 
to the accompaniment of the bell of the church of 
Notre Dame at Liege, to be " infamous, excom- 
municated, and banished." If, however, the de- 
fendant demanded " the judgment of God," — 
that is, the duel, — and if he succeeded in un- 
horsing his opponent in the lists, he was consid- 
ered a good man with a spotless character. Might 
made right. John of Brabant, of whom we shall 
hear at Woeringen, was famous for thus killing 
his man at Paris. 

With the growth of the gentler feelings nour- 
ished by Christianity, chivalry arose. Its unwrit- 
ten code compelled men in the higher grades of 
society to conform to certain rules of conduct, 
harmonious with what was best in human inter- 
course. There was no universal standard, charter, 
or organization. History has to be made before it 
can be written. Yet the code of honor was interna- 
tional. The contemporaneous ^wsAicZo ("Knightly 
Eule," the " Warrior's Path," or " Way "), in Eu- 
rope was for centuries as undefined by the pen as 
was that of Japan, until later writers analyzed, 
reviewed, formulated, glorified, and idealized it in 
literature and art, at both ends of the earth. 

The story of knighthood in Belgium is like an 
illuminated manuscript, bejeweled with a thousand 
shining examples of romantic valor and self-sacri- 



70 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

fice. From the soil of chivalry sprang the pas- 
sion-flower of the crusades, for these were a direct 
outgrowth of feudal manners, softened, refined, 
and matured. Probably with no people in Europe 
were the campaigns of the cross — from the very 
first of them, attempted by poor pilgrims to the 
Holy Land, to those which enthroned kings in the 
Oriental seats of the mighty — more closely asso- 
ciated than with the men of the Low Countries. 
In that reaction of the Occident upon the Orient, 
which we call the crusades, the knights of Belgic 
land were among the noblest leaders. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 

The Moslems had ended their holy wars, which 
propagated the faith of Islam, when the Christians 
began theirs, and the armies of Jehovah marched 
against the people of Allah. The crusades were 
initiated by Pope Urban II in an eloquent sermon 
before many dignitaries, at Bari, Italy, in 1095 
A.D., when he was answered by the shout of his 
auditors, " God wills it ! " 

After this, Peter the Hermit, who had followed 
Count Robert as a pilgrim to the Holy Land, 
became a popular revivalist in exciting the poor 
people to march to the East. Making a pulpit of 
his saddle upon an ass, and holding aloft the cru- 
cifix, he rode through the countries of middle 
Europe. Recounting the story of the oppression 
of Christian pilgrims by the Saracens, he roused 
his auditors to a pitch of frenzy. Princes and po- 
tentates, knights and local rulers were compelled, 
perforce, to lay aside their own selfish or local 
schemes, and join in this movement of the people. 
The Pope called upon warriors " armed with the 
sword of the Maccabees to go and defend the 
House of Israel." 

Like magic the sign of the red cross appeared 



72 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

on tens of thousands of human breasts. The con- 
trasted emblems of Saracen and Christian faith, 
the crescent and the cross, the one borrowed from 
the skies, the other from the earth, were now re- 
produced in steel. The Orientals wielded a blade 
curved like the young moon. The hilt and guard 
of the Occidentals, so ostentatiously wrought into 
the figure of the cross, represented the Roman 
gibbet reared on Calvary. The warriors of both 
armies considered that they were doing God serv- 
ice when the crescent-shaped scimetar and cross- 
hilted sword clashed in combat. 

The first crusade was led by the man on the 
ass, with his lieutenant, Walter the Landless. 
The march of this horde across Europe resembled 
the track of devastating invaders, and in the 
Greek Empire it was received and treated as a 
hostile army. Gibbon in history and Scott in fic- 
tion have presented this view of the crusaders, as 
held by the Orientals. Few survived the hard- 
ships of the first movement, which left pyramids 
"Ny^ of bones in the mountain passes ; but Peter, the 

fiery preacher, was one of the few. Keturning 
home, aflame with zeal and with apparently inex- 
haustible energy, he began the construction of the 
abbey at Huy, on the Maas River, — to-day a 
central point of fortification and convenient for 
delightful excursions, — where Peter died in 1115. 
In popular legend he will never be forgotten 
as the originator of the crusades attempted by 



THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 73 

the rabble, though critical scholars award to the 
papacy the credit or discredit of the organized 
expeditions. Whatever opinions one may hold con- 
cerning these campaigns of the cross, either as 
to their causes, methods, or results, the name of 
Peter the Hermit will, for the common people, 
always outshine every other, as the one whose puny 
hands first moved that Occidental avalanche upon 
the Orient, which to Asiatic peoples seems as does 
that of Attila, or Genghis Khan, to Europeans. 

Local legend declares that fifteen hundred 
pounds of silver were raised for Godfrey de Bouillon 
(1060-1100), by making a levy upon the rich 
abbeys of the diocese. Almost literally, he sold all 
that he had " to follow Christ " and equip his 
knights. It is said that the army — though these 
were not the days of accurate official reports — went 
out from the Ehine Valley in 1096, numbering 
eighty thousand footmen and ten thousand horse- 
men. Behaving like knights and gentlemen, they 
reached Constantinople with their numbers nearly 
intact. They were soon followed by the French 
and the Flemings, the latter led by their Count, 
Robert II of Flanders, under whom also was the 
Anglo-Saxon contingent. 

Since both heroes, Eobert and Godfrey, " with- 
out fear and without reproach," were victors over 
the Saracens, this first crusade made for Flanders 
and Brabant a glorious epoch in time and a sub- 
ject for national pride during the succeeding cen- 



74 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

turies, though popular enthusiasm has greatly ex- 
aggerated the merits and character of the Belgian 
crusaders. It is certain, however, that Godfrey's 
castle, perched high upon a ridge of isolated rocks 
that in themselves formed a natural fortress, was 
one of the strongest built in the Middle Ages, 
and that Godfrey's statue in Brussels, with its 
pedestal and bas-reliefs, is one of the noblest works 
of art in modern Belgium, 

The total combined force of Christian Europe 
numbered, according to the reports, one hundred 
thousand horsemen and six hundred thousand foot- 
men — including also women and children. They 
were to travel thousands of miles, amid dangers 
of every sort, to capture a city in which Jesus is 
not known to have spent a single night, except 
the one before his crucifixion, and to recover and 
guard his tomb, of which the site was then, as now, 
conjectural. 

Leaving home in the early spring and following 
Charlemagne's Eoad, they captured Nicaea from 
the Turks on the 24th of June, and on July 4 won 
the battle of Dorylaeum in Phrygia. By this time 
the antipathies of race and country among the cru- 
saders themselves had asserted themselves, despite 
the bonds of a common religion, and in the distribu- 
tion of spoil, quarrels were frequent. After the 
capture of Tarsus, the Walloons, under Baldwin, 
brother of Godfrey, and the Italians, under Tancred, 
came to blows on the question of which deserved 



THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 75 

the credit of the city's capture. Tancred, so cele- 
brated in Tasso's poem of "Jerusalem Delivered," 
was reasonable, but Baldwin drew off his force, 
marched into Mesopotamia, and established the 
kingdom of Edessa. 

Again the steel crescent and the steel cross 
clashed, to be bathed in the red stream of life, and 
Antioch was captured. It was toward the end of 
the year, and the crusaders suffered frightfully 
during the following winter. When, however, be- 
leaguered by a mighty army of Saracens, they had 
made a sortie and routed their foes with an alleged 
loss of a hundred thousand men, the way was made 
clear to Jerusalem. In the summer of 1099, they 
first beheld from the heights of Emmaus, the 
object of their long pilgrimage. Only fifty thou- 
sand of the half million or more, who at various 
times had left their homes, were able to lift up 
their voices to sing the hymn that promised de- 
liverance to the holy city. 

After the crusaders had moved in solemn pro- 
cession around the walls, the Occidental and 
Oriental fanatics again met in battle at the assault 
on July 14. Three war-towers, on which stood 
Godfrey, Tancred, and Raymond, were pushed 
toward the ramparts, while the rank and file of the 
Christian army fought in the spaces between them. 
The first day was indecisive, but at daybreak on 
July 15, 1099, the drop bridges were let down, and 
an irresistible stream of Christian warriors rolled 



76 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

in. After a week of fighting and the slaughter of 
seventy thousand Saracens, the Christians doffed 
their armor, donned the pilgrim's guise, and knelt 
at the Holy Sepulchre. Godfrey of Bouillon, the 
Walloon, was made "Advocate" of Jerusalem, 
though later legend made him a "king." Short 
was his rule and brief was his glory on earth, for 
within a year he died. In later crusades Belgians 
took part, and Baldwin's descendants ruled in 
Jerusalem. 

One expedition of Flemish crusaders sailed 
from Antwerp in 1145, in a hundred ships, and 
at Lisbon joined with the English knights in ex- 
pelling the Moors from Portugal. Many of these 
men remained in Portugal and began a commerce 
which later developed into vast proportions, so 
that when the Azores Islands were discovered by 
Belgic Netherlanders, in the early fifteenth cen- 
tury, they were settled by a colony of two thousand 
Flemings and were often called the Flemish Islands. 

But man and his language change, while nature 
and the birds remain. Ultimately the azores, or 
hawks, so numerous on the islands, furnished the 
group its name, though for generations Flemish 
was the language spoken. For a century or two, 
after 1492, the Azores were considered as part of 
America, and most of the trading and colonizing 
ships sailed hence directly westward to the New 
World. 

From this incident of the Azores, though re- 



THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 77 

motely, even as the pond lily opens its white and 
gold to the sun only after a long anchorage of its 
stem in the ooze beneath, rose Usselincx and the 
West India Company, under which New Nether- 
land began its civil life, and the future area of the 
four Middle States of America was outlined. " I 
lived for a time in the Azores, which are reckoned 
a part of America," wrote the founder of the 
Dutch and Swedish West ludia Companies, who 
was born in Antwerp in 1567, the year that the 
Duke of Alva and his Spanish army of " Black 
Beards " marched in to devastate the land. Usse- 
lincx was one in the first flight of over a hundred 
thousand Walloon and Flemish refugees, who 
helped to make Holland great. 

In the Canary Islands, the Flemings, pleased to 
see in the bird the same color as on their Brabant 
flag and crosses, founded Villa verde. In the mean 
time, the main expedition, though under the com- 
mand of an emperor and a king, failed ignomin- 
iously before Damascus. Thierry, the Count of 
Flanders, redeemed in part the situation by going 
to Palestine and helping his brother-in-law, Bald- 
win III, to hold Jerusalem against the Saracens. 
Like a living pendulum, moved by unseen forces, 
Thierry vibrated often between Flanders and Syria. 
After being four times in the Orient, he returned, 
twenty years after his last visit, bringing back 
some drops of what he believed to be the blood 
of the Crucified. To enshrine these, the famous 



78 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

chapel of Saint-Sang, or the Holy Blood, was 
built at Bruges. It still contains the relic, which 
is statedly exhibited. This was the age of the le- 
gend of the Holy Grail, one of the prettiest of the 
fairy tales of Christianism, and which, like all 
noble works of the imagination that contain truth 
though not fact, inspired many brave and pure 
men to deeds of high achievement. 

The numerous episodes of Belgic valor in the 
Orient are recalled to-day by monuments or are 
glorified in forms of art. Count Philip of Flan- 
ders (1168-1191) went with a small body of 
Flemish knights and soldiers to the Christ-land. 
In this case, as in others, the sight of armed men 
about to leave home for war, kneeling on the 
stone floor of the church, or cathedral, and re- 
ceiving the Eucharist, must have been impressive. 
On the ground of Gideon, Samson, and David, 
Count Philip sought and obtained from a Saracen 
chief noted for his great strength, a challenge to 
a single-handed encounter. Philip vanquished his 
enemy and bore ofiE his shield, which had for its 
device a black lion on a golden field. He carried 
this trophy home, and it became the seal and 
crest of Flanders, and was everywhere, thereafter, 
visible on vanes, pennants, and in many a decor- 
ation of architecture. Indeed, in the heraldry 
of the " Nobilaire des Pays-Bas," scallop shells, 
Saracens' heads, the palmer's cross-staff, and other 
emblems associated with the crusades or the Holy 



THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 79 

Land, are notable and numerous. Belgian heraldry 
began in Palestine. 

During the Third Crusade, the Flemish soldiers 
remained with Richard the Lion-Hearted of Eng- 
land, even after their count had returned home. 
Not, however, till the Fifth Crusade did the Bel- 
gians win the glory and fame that are associated 
with the First. Hainault and Flanders having 
been united in the person of the eighth count of 
the name of Baldwin, and the ninth of that name 
to rule over Flanders, and the sixth over Hain- 
ault, the leadership of the Fifth Crusade was given 
to him. The prospect was promising, for the great 
Saladin had passed away. The Pope gladly ap- 
proved, in order to turn attention from the politi- 
cal troubles of Europe. So on Ash Wednesday, 
A.D. 1200, in the cathedral church of St. Donat, 
at Bruges, with his brothers and fellow knights, 
Baldwin " took the cross." Marching to Venice, 
they were expected to pay eighty-five thousand 
silver marks for their transportation to Palestine, 
but they found themselves unable to raise the 
money. The Doge of that day, Henry Dandolo, of 
whom Browning sings in "Sordello," though 
ninety years of age, was active in promoting the 
expedition and smoothing over difficulties. The 
crusaders fought in behalf of the Venetians to 
capture the adjoining territory and thus the debt 
was canceled. They then proceeded eastward, but 
were lured to Constantinople by the bribes of the 



80 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Greek prince, Alexius Commeniis, whom Walter 
Scott pictures in his novel of " Count Robert of 
Paris." 

After capturing the City of the Golden Horn, 
in June, 1203, a quarrel broke out between the 
men holding the Greek and the Roman traditions. 
The crusaders undertook a fresh siege of Con- 
stantinople, which they captured and gave up to 
pillage and destruction in a manner that showed 
how easily Christians can revert to primitive sav- 
agery. Rich and poor suffered, hovels and churches, 
public works and monuments of antiquity were 
destroyed, and the church edifices were stripped 
of their ornaments. The Venetians carried off the 
four bronze horses of Lysippus to decorate their 
city on the Adriatic lagoon, and the traveler sees 
them to-day on the porch of St. Mark's. The 
Flemings brought away the great golden dragon 
from the palace of Buccoleon and at home placed 
it over the belfry of the Cathedral of Ghent. 
Without a rival nominee, Baldwin, Count of 
Flanders and Hainault, was chosen Emperor of 
Constantinople. After being consecrated by the 
Bishop of Soissons, he was raised by his followers 
on their shields, according to the primitive cus- 
tom of the people of the Germanic forests, and 
then solemnly crowned in St. Sophia, his com- 
rades crying out, "He is worthy to reign, he is 
worthy ! '' 

During the fifty years of the Baldwin dynasty 



THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 81 

in ConstaDtinople, notwithstanding that the Greek 
Empire was divided with the Italians, Flemish 
commerce entered upon a vast expansion, which 
greatly enriched Europe with seeds for the soil 
and seeds for the mind. The fleets of Flemish 
ships, as often as they arrived from the Bosphorus 
or Levant, were as fructifying showers upon half- 
civilized Europe. 

Even if considered quixotic, or predatory in 
their execution, the crusades were certainly noble 
in their origin and aim. They formed not only an 
epoch in European history, but they exercised a 
distinct influence upon the development of Bel- 
gian nationality, industry, and art. From first to 
last no people in Europe took a more prominent 
or glorious part, in their inception and realization, 
than the Belgians, who were preeminent among 
the crusading nations. The first Occidental ruler 
of Jerusalem was a Walloon, and the initial West- 
ern Emperor of Constantinople was a Fleming. 
The fact that to-day the Belgians, being over- 
whelmingly Roman Catholic, maintain strenuously 
the traditions and preserve the inheritances of the 
mother church, makes the memory of the crusades 
all the more vivid. 

A survey of that period of history in which 
Europe came again into vitalizing contact with 
Asia, the old mother continent, shows the vastness 
of the debt we owe to the various Eastern peoples. 
Christendom rose out of barbarism and came in 



82 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

contact with the Arabs, just when these latter had 
gathered up and assimilated most of the science 
and art of the Orient. The work of the mailed 
warrior in forwarding the civilization of Europe 
has been exaggerated, while that of the peaceful 
merchant has hardly been noticed. Fighting did 
far less than commerce to help the Europeans to 
see the deficiences of their culture as compared 
with that of the Asiatics. War wasted, and its 
results were temporary. Commerce brought pro- 
sperity, and its issues of peace enrich civilization 
to-day. The carpets of Aleppo and Damascus were 
imitated in Brussels and Ghent, until Belgic land 
supplied most of Europe. From their brilliant 
colors, artists learned new secrets which made the 
canvas bloom. Along the quays of Bruges' sea- 
port, poet and painter found themes for delight 
and suggestion. In various ways and times, there 
came into Europe from the Orient, for the farm 
and table, spices, rice, tea, coffee, silk, cotton, as- 
paragus, hemp, saffron, mulberries, peaches, palms, 
lemons, oranges, sugar cane, and scores of vege- 
table products for food, healing, raiment, and 
household comforts. 

In the realm of manufactures paper, gunpowder, 
printing by means of ''living" or movable types, the 
compass, water clocks, linen, damask, morocco, bro- 
cade, embossed silk stuffs, velvet, crystal, plate glass, 
sugar, confectionery, and articles of dessert were 
among the Asiatic novelties which enriched Europe. 



THE BELGIAN CRUSADERS 83 

In the realm of science, our debt seems to be 
greater yet. The Orient invented and gave us what 
we have developed, such as the Arabic numerals, 
algebra, trigonometry, chemistry, and various sys- 
tems of speculation and philosophy which stimu- 
lated intellect in Europe and promoted research 
and scientific progress. In a word, the Occident 
would never have reached the 5tage of advance 
visible in this twentieth century, except for its 
many and fertilizing contacts with the Orient. 



CHAPTER IX 
woman's industries in the castle 

Feudalism furnished the transition era of Eu- 
ropean womanhood from barbarism to ladyship. 
The era of the crusades marked a notable point in 
the development of the modern woman. The tur- 
reted stronghold of the baron allowed her oppor- 
tunies of every sort to develop her innate capaci- 
ties. As, in a favored environment, the crystal 
becomes the purer and larger gem, so, behind the 
portcullis, the consummate white flower of pure 
womanhood, protected from violence, bloomed into 
fullness of beauty. 

Next to the monastery the castle was the place 
into which the traveler, pilgrim, man of intellect, 
or person of social importance came. Within its 
walls the outsider with news or a message, the 
troubadour with a song, the wandering minstrel 
able to tell the gospel story in verse and with music, 
the neighbors, — ladies and gentlemen of the 
hawking-parties, or competitors with arrow or 
crossbow at the target, and the rivals at the tour- 
nament, — were welcomed as guests. Such facili- 
ties as social life in the Middle Ages furnished, 
or hospitality suggested, found their focus within 



WOMAN'S INDUSTRIES IN THE CASTLE 85 

and beyond the drawbridge and between turret 
and foundation stone. 

When by the crusades the land was drained of 
its best men, and great numbers of women, wives, 
daughters, and relatives of the absent knights 
were left lonely, few gave themselves to idleness 
or empty repining. Woman found her unexpected 
opportunity and responded nobly. The needs of 
the age called for a special order of deaconesses, 
or nuns, and to those needs thousands dedicated 
themselves. The land teemed with desolate women 
who furnished the raw material for neophytes. 
These did not become hermits or live in the for- 
est, as did many men for religion's sake. They 
first dwelt homeless at the edge of the towns, serv- 
ing Christ and the poor. About 1200 A. D. they 
joined their cabins together for safety and mutual 
assistance. Thus the order of the Beguins was 
formed. Ladies in the upper walks of life, mostly 
orphans, daughters, widows or wives of crusaders, 
besides unmarried women of rank and wealth, as- 
sociated themselves in households for purposes of 
charity, industry, and devotion. There was no 
head, — all were free and everything was volun- 
tary. They took no life vows, like the nuns, and 
instead of the open country the towns were the 
chief seats of their humane labors. They minis- 
tered to the sick and poor, the troubled and the 
starving, and gave generously of their private for- 
tune, for many of the Beguins were ladies with 



86 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

means. The communities, or Beguinages, still sur- 
vive both in Belgium and Holland, forming a not- 
able feature of Netherlands Christianity. Here 
thousands of women not mated, or suited in love, 
can follow their personal preferences and find a 
refuge for their pride, energy, and love of well- 
doing. 

Thousands of Americans annually visit the Be- 
guin Hof, in Amsterdam, which is easily reached 
from the Kalvar Straat, — the Broadway of the 
city on the Y, where to-day stands the Scotch 
Church, in which is a tablet to the Pilgrim Fa- 
thers of New England, and opposite to it the 
Catholic house of worship. Within this area, vocal 
with birds and beautiful with bright flowers, are 
the houses of the sisters. 

In Ghent the settlement of the two thousand 
or more Beguins is a delightful bit of secluded 
mediaevalism within the bounds of a bustling mod- 
ern city — ''a Christian Pompeii." The nuns, or 
ladies, now devote themselves chiefly to Belgium's 
characteristic feminine industry, which is lace- 
making. Under their deft fingers the loveliest pat- 
terns of this fairy-like fabric are made, some of 
them seeming as delicate as if woven from strands 
of air and sunshine. 

It is believed that the Beguins take their name, 
not from the word meaning to " beg," but from 
their patron saint, named Begga, or in English 
St. Bees. In tradition this person was an Irish 



WOMAN'S INDUSTRIES IN THE CASTLE 87 

princess, who, rather than wed a pagan chief, ran 
away on the eve of her marriage, crossed the sea 
on a sod of grass, and found refuge on Belgic soil. 
Another account makes her the daughter of Count 
Pepin of Landen, and sister of St. Gertrude. After 
the death of her husband, who was killed while out 
hunting, she made a pilgrimage to Rome. Stat- 
ues of her are seen in many Belgian churches. She is 
always represented with seven chickens at her feet, 
or seven ducks in a pond near by. These fowls re- 
present the seven churches, or monasteries, built 
by her at Audenne-on-the-Maas, in memory of the 
seven basilicas or churches seen by her in the 
Eternal City. These " Seven Churches of Rome " 
furnish a name for many hotels in the Nether- 
lands. 

The more highly decorated legend asserts that 
the saint, while on her missionary work in ancient 
Belgia, was guided by a motherly hen, with her 
seven chicks, to places favorable for the building 
of churches. An old medal, formerly worn on the 
neck of the canoness of Audenne, has on one side 
a bear representing the wild forest in which her 
work began ; and, on the other, seven chickens. 
On the right of the abbey is a spring, called '' the 
fountain of the pullets." A crown suggests the 
lady's noble lineage, and an ornate building is 
held in her hand, as the founder of the beguinages, 
now so numerous. 

One can easily detect the process in the growth 



88 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

of these myths, and see how and why they are so 
parasitic to religion in every form and all over the 
world. There are, first, the mystery of creation 
and the forces of nature. These were explained 
by stories of " the gods," who made earth and the 
stars, caused rain, lightning, thunder, ordered the 
four seasons, and out of the earth brought forth 
food for man. When Christianity came in, pagan 
deities were changed into harmless fairies, but the 
insatiable appetite for wonder lore caused legends 
to grow around the saints. Stories of holy men 
and women, talking wild beasts, eloquent flowers, 
malignant imps, demons and devils, of witchcraft 
on the one side and the power of the crucifix on 
the other, or signum crucis (sign of the cross), 
were narrated in castle hall and peasant's hut. 
These were not the days of science, of the electric 
light and of instruments of test and scrutiny ; but 
of superstition, of the flickering candle, the pine 
torch, the hearth fire ; and, besides all this, the 
winter evenings were long. 

Then also the priests must make the people, 
only recently converted from heathenism, forget 
the old gods and heroes, who were replaced by the 
characters in holy scripture and the classics. In 
time came the moralities. Old Testament dramas, 
and the passion plays, out of which grew the theatre. 
By this time the sooty demon of mediaeval Christ- 
ian mythology had been transformed into Me- 
phistopheles, the elegant fellow in red velvet, with 



WOMAN'S INDUSTRIES IN THE CASTLE 89 

rapier, cap, and feather. Not only Goethe, but 
even the Puritan Milton made Satan a splendid 
fellow, admirable at many points, despite his craft 
and malignity. In a word, the idea of the Devil 
and his power, along with and in contrast to that 
of things holy, developed with the advance of 
civilization and the power of the church. 

More directly useful than legends of idealized 
female saints were the energies of the average 
woman of skill. The distaff and the needle in her 
hands were powerful factors in the development 
of the sex, for in their exercise of skill new fields 
opened to woman's finer strength. Needlecraft 
became one of the first of feminine arts. While 
the men outside were building cathedrals, em- 
broidering stone with the chisel, and making 
marble blossom in the upper air, flowers of art in 
lace bloomed within walls under woman's dainty 
fingers. In the wonder and variety of its pro- 
ducts, the needle matched those of the chisel. In 
delicacy and beauty the strands of flax, thus 
skillfully wrought, rivaled the spider's web. 

Belgic craftsmanship became famous on many 
continents, because of its textiles — cloth, lace, 
tapestry, and embroidery. The last was treated as 
a fine art and as a serious branch of painting. If in 
manipulation, it required less strenuous care in the 
selection and setting of its fibres than did lace, yet, 
on the other hand, it added the element of color and 
gave equal opportunity for the display of taste. 



90 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Nothing as yet made by machinery is like flax 
in its tensile strength. The finest fibres, imper- 
ceptible to the eye and manipulated only by touch, 
have cost as high as a thousand dollars a pound. 
Like a spider's, in filminess, is this fairy thread, 
and yet it is so durable that for centuries it 
retains its form and beauty. Tournay was looked 
upon as the centre of the flax industry in Belgium, 
most Irish linen being finished from the Tournay 
fibre. Rotterdam gets its name from the Eotte 
Kiver, in which the flax stalks were rotted. 

For the selection and working of the raw ma- 
terial of the flax brought from Egypt, the damp, 
dark cellar, or room underground, was the ideal 
place ; but for the deft arrangements of tints in 
embroidery, good light was needed, and the sun- 
niest, cheeriest rooms in the castle were chosen. 
Tapestry, which required heavier material and 
more muscular strength, passed out from beyond 
the baron's fortified quarters to special workshops 
in the towns, and became a craft for men ; but the 
finer work with the needle, bobbin, and pillow, re- 
mained behind the portcullis and convent gate, in 
women's hands. 

In the castle a great lady prided herself on the 
number of her female attendants, very much as 
the lord looked with exultation upon the array of 
knights that followed his banner. All the female 
members of the inner household were expected to 
be busy with the needle or distaff. It was the cus- 



WOMAN'S INDUSTRIES IN THE CASTLE 91 

torn for the nobles to send their daughters to the 
castle of their suzerains or chiefs, to be taught to 
weave, spin, embroider, make lace or the finer sorts 
of tapestry. Not a few of the old French ro- 
mances speak of these " chambrieres," or indus- 
trious maidens, and many inventories detail the 
amount and cost of the ladies' working materials. 
During the Wars of the Eoses in England (1455- 
1485) hundreds of refugees, noblemen and high- 
bred ladies, found themselves paupers in a foreign 
land. Some begged their bread on the streets of 
Ghent and Bruges, but not a few found refuge 
in the castles and nunneries and earned a living 
with the needle. 

The art of lace-making had its rise most prob- 
ably in Belgic land. Besides supplying the women 
with a livelihood gained in an easy, artistic, and 
delightful way, it altered and even revolutionized 
dress, adding new graces to life and beauty to 
costume. It was an art so well suited to develop 
feminine abilities that, very naturally, the fashion 
of both working and wearing lace spread with 
phenomenal rapidity into other countries. Tides 
of fashion, in ebb and flow, spread to and flowed 
in from Paris, Vienna, Mechlin, Brussels, and 
London. Convents formed a vast storehouse of 
feminine skill, and the output of these added 
enormously to the wealth of Europe. 

Even after castle days and far into the time of 
gunpowder and firearms, when the powers of attack 



92 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

had at last prevailed over those of defense, and 
down to the French Revolution, women of rank and 
power kept up these pretty industries. One of the 
delightful touches of human nature in history is 
that related of Margaret of Parma, at Brussels, in 
1566, listening, with William of Orange and the 
nobles, to the letter of Philip II from Madrid, 
when " The Duchess laid aside her embroidery, 
rested her head on her hand, and gave all atten- 
tion to the discussion." Instances are known of 
other women in high political life retaining these 
pleasing feminine habits. 

The climate and environment of the Low Coun- 
tries tended to enrichment of life indoors and aided 
in the evolution of woman. There were few out- 
door attractions in summer and almost none in 
winter. Travel was nearly impossible in a swampy 
country with only poor roads. Falconry and the 
chase were enjoyed in the summer season, but, 
despite sleighs and skates, the winters seemed long 
and the slow passing time was heavy with tedium, 
unless the hours could be made to fly swiftly on 
the wings of industry. In hope of spring's blos- 
soms and summer's glories, women plied gladly 
the needle and waited patiently for the petals. 
Until well into the nineteenth centurj^^, when the 
old household industries had been, for the most 
part, transferred to factories, French women were 
virtually kept prisoners at home. 

How great the demand for lace became is made 



WOMAN'S INDUSTRIES IN THE CASTLE 93 

plain in the paintings that fill the space of many acres 
in European galleries. Men's fashions as well as 
women's demanded the snow-white film. Before 
the era of cloth and silk, men wore lace even on 
armor. Then, when steel and leather clothes were 
left off, they bought lace by the yard, for sashes, 
ruffs, cuffs, and collars. In later times ladies had 
dresses made wholly of lace. Most of the vocabu- 
lary which describes the hundred or more varieties 
of the fabric, such as "point" "pillow," "baby,'^ 
"torchon," "knotted," etc., or those named after 
places, was developed on Belgic soil. For centu- 
ries in Belgium one of the most characteristic sights 
on the streets and in the doorways in summer was 
that of the groups of lace-makers, busy, talkative, 
and happy. Even during the awful scourge of the 
war of 1914, the fruits of woman's toil, in the form 
of Belgian lace, sold in America, helped to furnish 
food for the needy millions in this afflicted land. 



CHAPTER X 

THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 

Although the crusades were the highest ex- 
pression of chivalry and represented the most 
strenuous expression of feudalism, they contributed 
largely to the fall of both these institutions. The 
crusaders' campaigns helped to exterminate, di- 
minish, or impoverish the nobles. Their leaders 
were not shrewd statesmen, for they chased phan- 
toms in the Orient, and failed to safeguard their 
own interests and those of their people. 

The Belgic traders and artisans, for the most 
part immune from the mania of crusading enthu- 
siasm, found their opportunity and improved it. 
After the first outbreak of zeal, they held aloof 
from the whole enterprise. Furthermore, by get- 
ting too near the centre of things, their eyes were 
opened and they saw in a new light both infidels 
and churchmen. 

Left free to pursue business, the traders grew 
rich and were able to lend money to their social 
superiors. Barter gave way to the use of coin. The 
coming of the Lombards to northern Europe 
greatly facilitated trade. By the power of money, 
united to industry and intelligence, the commoner 
became independent of the man in armor, the 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 95 

mechanic could stand against kings, while the 
scholar, able to buy books, could challenge the pre- 
tenses of priest, dogma, and legend. 

In earlier feudal days there were no standing 
armies. A vassal was not obliged to serve his su- 
perior, except for the term of forty days, though 
the liege-men, when called out, had to bear arms 
for the full period of the war. Philip Augustus 
(1125-1263), who consolidated France, changed 
this system by converting his vassals into the 
same grade as that of his liege-men. 

Under French influence it was attempted to 
reduce the Flemish burghers to the level of French 
peasants. The enterprise proceeded all the more 
merrily on the French side, because it was hoped 
that the wealth of these industrious men could be 
transferred to the coffers of the French suzerain 
and into the pockets of his minions. War in those 
days was as much a money-making affair, for the 
enrichment of a few at the cost of the many, as In 
our days of dollar diplomacy, when bankers hold 
the balance of power in dictating war and peace. 
The enforcement of this policy of the French was 
the cause of more or less revolt and disturbance. 
It stimulated the townsmen of Flanders to organ- 
ize train bands and develop their infantry. Parties 
were formed and named according as the partisans 
were in favor of or against France, or of real or 
only nominal French suzerainty over Flanders. 

This was the era of the parties, named the " Lil- 



96 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ies " and the " Lion's Claws,*' their names and 
politics now seeming as grotesque, while yet as 
vital, in their time, as those of the Hooks and 
Cods of Holland. The Liliaerts, or Lilies, wore 
the emblem of royal France and were pro-French 
in sympathies and activities. The Clawaerts, 
Claws, or in French, gens de griffe^ — that is, men 
of the talons, — were Flemings, who believed that 
the lion of Flanders could tear the French lilies 
to pieces. 

In 1301, Philip of France, with his queen, Joan 
of Navarre, came to Bruges, where the Liliaerts 
gave them a boisterous and spectacular welcome. 
The fetes held here and in Ghent, to celebrate the 
French visit, gave abundant opportunity for the 
display of that wealth and magnificence which was 
already proverbial in Europe as belonging to 
Flanders. Queen Joan was mightily impressed 
with the dresses of the Flemish ladies, saying, " I 
thought I was the only queen here, but I see a 
thousand around me." Later on, Charles V jested 
with the King of France, declaring that he could 
" put Paris in his glove " ; Gand, or Ghent, being 
80 much larger then than the city on the Seine. 

Yet all this while the " Claws " were ready to 
tear both the velvet and the flowers. Peter de 
Coninck, a weaver, headed a revolt against the 
tyrannical measures of the French king's agent in 
Bruges. This first uprising was put down, but 
soon seven thousand Clawaerts entered the town 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 97 

and compelled every one to say the passwords, 
" Schilt ende vriendt " (shield and friend). All 
who could not pronounce them properly, or gave 
the words a French accent, were to be put to the 
sword. This reminds one of the later rising of the 
London apprentices against the Flemings, when 
those suspected of being strangers were shown a 
piece of bread and of cheese and made to pro- 
nounce their names, death following upon hetero- 
dox sounds. 

The French garrison in Bruges was massacred 
on the 19th of May, 1302. On the bloody page of 
Flemish history, this event is marked the " Bruges 
Matins," no doubt in contrast, yet with a likeness, 
to the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, when the island- 
ers rose and massacred their French masters. The 
sequel of this uprising of the common people 
against their feudal superiors was an invasion in 
force from France, followed by the ever famous 
Battle of the Golden Spurs, at Courtrai. 

The army of vengeance, burning and destroy- 
ing as it advanced, crossed the Belgian frontier 
in July. Seventy-five great nobles, having names 
among the proudest in France, a thousand knights, 
three thousand squires of gentle birth, and over 
thirty thousand soldiers under the Count of Ar- 
tois, made, with its allies from Hainault and Bra- 
bant, a host numbering fifty thousand men. No 
more brilliant array had ever been gathered under 
the banner of the fleur-de-lys. Horsemen dressed 



98 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

in steel constituted the pride of armies in that day 
as truly as do the battleships of to-day make na- 
tions pride-swollen. 

On the other side the forces of the Flemings, 
mostly mechanics, without knights, and with but 
a few hundred horsemen, consisted of twenty-five 
thousand men. These footmen had long swords, 
but they depended, both for defense and offense, 
chiefly upon their strong iron boar-spears, or 
plough-coulters firmly fixed in stout poles. With 
these they struck with deadly effect the armed 
frontlet of the enemy's horse, or the neck and 
shoulders of the rider himself. With grim humor 
these ugly weapons were dubbed " Good-Days." 
Many a knight, pulled off his horse, who opened 
his visor to make surrender, received " Good- 
Day '' full in his face. Sure death followed ugly 
wounds, for the Flemings were ordered to make 
no prisoners and to take no booty from the in- 
vaders, but to slay all. Compared with the butch- 
eries of ancient and mediaeval warfare, death and 
wounds from gunshots meant progress in civiliz- 
ation. With gunpowder came surgery and the 
care of the wounded. 

These working men went forth to meet the men 
who would make them starve. If France hindered 
the exportation of wool from England, the money 
and food of the Flemish weavers ceased. Hence 
their determination to kill the Frenchmen and 
keep friendship with England. 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 99 

Near Courtrai, now the centre of the flax in- 
dustry, the forces from Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, 
mostly weavers, under command of Count John 
of Namur and Duke William of Juliers, were 
drawn up upon a plain sloping toward the foe, 
with a ditch or stream where the incline met the 
plain. A river was behind them and their position 
was strengthened with ramparts and fences. 

Some of the mediaeval war customs were very 
impressive. The springtime fields of modern Cour- 
trai are blue with flowers of the flax. Then they 
were white with myriads of Marguerite daisies — 
the same flower which the Walloons first brought 
to America, in the upper Hudson Kiver valley, 
where they still make the meadows snowy with their 
white petals in June of every year. A priest from 
a raised altar blessed the army as it kneeled. At 
the words of the blessing each soldier raised a 
morsel of earth to his lips and swore to die for his 
fatherland. This habit of kissing the earth before 
battle was very ancient. The chiefs, dismounting, 
took their places on foot at the head of their divi- 
sions, the flag of St. George, the patron saint of 
Flanders, was unfurled, and at seven o'clock, on 
the morning of the 11th of July, 1302, the battle 
began. 

The French cavalry charged, with the war cry, 
" Saint Denis! Montjoye ! " but, falling into con- 
fusion on the marshy ground, was obliged to re- 
treat. This gave the footmen, or men-at-arms, 



100 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

their opportunity. They crossed the stream, and 
with their arrows drove in the Flemish advance, 
with such manifest results that the French knights, 
goaded by jealous envy, lest these common foot- 
soldiers should win all the glory of victory, de- 
manded that the trumpet sound the charge. This 
was done so quickly that the archers had no time 
to retire, and the horsemen rode over their own 
countrymen. 

The Flemings had given way before the deadly 
flight of arrows, but the river forbade disastrous 
retreat, and, while the men from Ypres stood firm, 
William of Juliers, with his small body of horse 
and men-at-arms, charged upon the French cav- 
alry, driving the knights into the marshy stream. 
There they floundered helplessly in the mire, and 
were slaughtered by the Flemings, with their 
'^ Good-Days," by hundreds. In vain did the 
French reserves charge again. Nothing could hin- 
der the onslaught of the Flemings and their cruel 
determination to spare no lives. After the battle, 
beside the other plunder, seven hundred golden 
spurs, pulled from the heels of the French knights, 
were hung up as trophies in the church of Notre 
Dame in Courtrai. 

Flanders was delivered by the action of its own 
people. All Europe was as much astonished at 
workingmen beating in battle steel-clad knights, 
as were the men of oldtime notions in Japan, 
when, in 1877, the new peasant army proved itself 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 101 

as brave as the samurai host of Satsuma, and later 
overcame both Chinese and Russians. 

It is of this era, of the partisans of the Lilies 
and the Claws, that Hendrik Conscience, in 1839, 
the champion and pioneer of the modern Flemish 
movement, wrote in his novel, " The Lion of 
Flanders,'' which, by both Flemish and French, 
has been called the Belgian's Bible. To-day, in 
the splendid Town Hall of Courtrai, among the 
modern paintings that illustrate Belgian history, 
is one which depicts the Consultation of the 
Flemish leaders in the Court Room, the day be- 
fore the battle. The artist has set a historical 
novel in a frame. Conscience did the same in 
undying words. Which will be the more endur- 
ing? 

The old monastery church, decorated with the 
boot-jewels of the invaders, has long ago passed 
away, but to-day, in what was the centre of the 
bloody field, a little chapel, erected in 1831, 
shortly after the assertion of the Belgian inde- 
pendence, commemorates alike the victors and the 
vanquished. The superb marble monument, by a 
native sculptor, shows the proud maid of Flanders, 
standing aloft, holding a wreath and the work- 
man's spear, in exultant attitude of victory. One 
side of the pedestal depicts the departure of the 
commoner and the other his return ; while below, 
on the base, a knight, the Count of Artois, lies 
motionless under a dead war-horse, " dead in his 



102 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

harness." The Battle of the Golden Spurs is a 
bold landmark in the story of freedom. Similar 
uprisings of the people against the nobles took 
place at Ypres in 1281, at Liege in 1312, and at 
Louvain in 1378. 

In Belgium, feudalism illustrated the old pro- 
verb about quick ripeness and sure decay. This 
social system, based on land tenure and personal 
military service, was developed very early and 
perhaps even more fully here than in any other 
country, with France possibly as an exception. 
So also it began to disintegrate sooner in the Low 
Countries than elsewhere in Europe. There were 
several reasons for this, the economic being not 
the least ; but the most manifest element in secur- 
ing the change of social structure was the popular 
passion for freedom among the people, and their 
ability to maintain their rights in armed conflict. 
The inhabitants of the open country, or of de- 
fenseless villages, were unable to resist the steel- 
clad champions of chivalry ; but the burghers, 
that is, the men of the cities, perfected a military 
organization that could face knights, squires, and 
men-at-arms in the field, with good hopes of suc- 
cess. Horsemen, when most numerous, were apt 
to gain the advantage, but where conditions were 
more suitable for infantry, the train bands and 
communal levies stood the greater chance of vic- 
tory. With such elements at work — the spirit of 
independence and the ability to maintain it in 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 103 

arms — feudalism had to give way in Belgium ear- 
lier than in France, England, or Germany. 

Besides the bitterness infused into the wars be- 
tween cities, arising from trade rivalries, there 
was the bloody partisanship inspired by the papal 
schism. Very vivid in the chronicles is the descrip- 
tion of the Battle of Dunkirk, at which nine thou- 
sand Flemings were slain. Heralds with trumpets, 
at the beginning of a conflict, would sound notice 
of the pope's bull, and according to which pope 
the one side or the other obeyed, arose the mo- 
tive for wrath and slaughter. This papal schism 
lasted from 1309 to 1377. 

One of the political features also of the Middle 
Ages was the temporal power possessed by the 
bishops and the readiness with which they were 
willing to maintain it with the sword. Much of 
the land was owned by the prelates of the Church, 
or was held by the religious establishments. The 
men of cowl and mitre used the same worldly 
means for enforcing their authority and retaining 
their pelf, as were used by those who lived in 
castles and wore armor. One of many striking 
illustrations of the habit of militant bishops and 
monks to join in war was at the Battle of Woer- 
ingen — the name of a castle which had become 
the stronghold of robber chiefs. This was fought 
on an open heath, near the castle and close to the 
Rhine. 

The Archbishop of Cologne had gathered to- 



104 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

getlier forty thousand fighting men, and against 
these John of Brabant and his allies, with a rein- 
forcement from Cologne, numbering in all about 
fifteen thousand, were arrayed. The combat began 
with words instead of bloodshed on the morning 
of June 5, 1288, when in the neighboring abbey 
church the Archbishop excommunicated his en- 
emies. While, however, the prelate was discharg- 
ing anathemas, Duke John I, one of the most 
popular of rulers, poet, lover of music and of 
knightly sports, and a wise statesman and friend 
of the people, addressed his army, ordering his 
soldiers to kill him, their commander, if he fled 
or surrendered. 

Then the Bishop, having laid aside his canon- 
icals as the Anointed Son of the Church, put on 
armor, fighting like any man-at-arms. The cler- 
icals concentrated their attacks upon the centre, 
where, in shining steel, John rode under the great 
black-and-gold banner of Brabant. Prodigies of 
valor in single combat were the features of this, 
as of so many mediaeval battles, but the clerical 
army lost the day. The Archbishop was taken 
prisoner, and while in durance vile was compelled, 
even while in bed, to wear his iron clothes. The 
Pope protested against this treatment of a church 
magnate, but John of Brabant made a sarcastic 
reply. 

In Belgian annals this battle is deemed of vast 
importance, because it was followed by a general 



THE DECLINE OF FEUDALISM 105 

peace later, and by John's conquest of Limburg, 
in which popular rights were generously safe- 
guarded and the two provinces united under one 
rule. John was later killed at a tournament, the 
seventieth in which he had tried his skill. A 
Flemish poet has sung the praises of the heroes 
of Woeringen (or Worringen), and in modern art 
a Belgian painter has depicted on canvas its glory 
and the valor of its contestants. 

Many upholders of feudalism, especially those 
who profited by its remaining intact, strove for 
its continuance, but in vain. The greatest obsta- 
cles to a system based on land and privilege lay 
in the persistence of the old Teutonic spirit of 
independence and the organization of the guilds. 
The policy of the French kings was to remove 
these obstacles and reduce the Flemings to the 
condition of the peasantry of France. The determ- 
ination of these intelligent men, who earned their 
own living, was to win and enjoy those rights of 
man which are older than castles or cathedrals. 
In the words of a later day and document, they 
are " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'* 



CHAPTER XI 

FLEMISH CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

The prosperity of Ypres, Ghent, and Bruges, 
called the three " good '* cities, which were the 
richest, most populous, and most important of any 
beyond the Alps, did not rest wholly upon their 
manufactures. One powerful factor in their history 
is found in their nearness to the greatest of the 
European trade routes over land and by water, 
which converged at Champagne in France. These 
lines of traffic, constantly traversed by horses and 
wagons, stretched from the Bosphorus, the en- 
trepot of the caravans of Asia, and from Russia, 
the centre of Mongol activities, through Germany, 
over the old Roman roads and into France. By 
the water routes of the Mediterranean, along which 
land freight was re-shipped from Venice, Genoa, 
and Marseilles, goods were borne to the great 
French fairs. These were among the most pictur- 
esque and useful features of the Middle Ages. 

So long as these fairs flourished, especially those 
at Champagne, and money was made in abundance, 
it was possible to build cathedrals, then of unpar- 
alleled splendor, and since unmatched. The pro- 
sperity of these markets, held in the open air, was 
proof of an economic revolution. It indicated that 



" FLEMISH CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 107 

the focus of wealth and energy had been trans- 
ferred from Egypt and Constantinople to the Far 
West of Europe. The rise of Champagne followed 
upon the decay of Constantinople. In both France 
and the Low Countries the wealth gained by com- 
merce was transmuted into the beauty and glory 
of Christian places of worship. It is no wonder 
that the thirteenth is called " the greatest of the 
centuries," by which time the Roman and early 
Christian culture had been assimilated and wealth 
was abundant. In several lines of human achieve- 
ment there has never been another century like it. 

Happily for generations of men of taste, even to 
our own day, ecclesiastical architecture in France 
developed under the control of men who wrought 
in unity. In Belgic land individual and local 
caprice had freer rein. Hence, while the cathe- 
drals of the Low Countries are striking, and 
often grand and imposing, one goes to France, 
rather than to Belgium, to study and enjoy the 
masterpieces of Gothic architecture — that con- 
summate flower of the piety and genius of north- 
ern Europe. Yet the student-tourist comes back 
to the Low Countries to find peerless specimens of 
civic architecture, which show how prevalent was 
the pride of the burghers in their cities. 

The very splendor of life in a mediaeval Belgic 
commune helped to prevent its people from taking 
large views of affairs outside their own walls, and 
from having truly national ideas. Indeed, the time 



108 BELGIUM : THE LAND OF ART 

had not yet come for the conception of a nation which 
should bind together Ghenter and Brugenaer, 
Hainaulter, Limburger, Brusselaer, and Liege- 
man into an organic whole. Local interests loomed 
before each set of townsmen, and competition, often 
bitter even unto blood, was ever hot between rival 
communes. Each city, with no view of a higher 
political union, became not only emulous but usu- 
ally envious of its neighbor. The burghers were 
"men of the bell" — responding freely to the call 
of the hour, but indisposed to think long or hard 
on problems of permanence. The republics of the 
Middle Ages in Italy and the communes of medi- 
aeval Belgium were but trading corporations. 

Civic enterprises in this age did not take the 
form of exploration, road or bridge building, the 
opening of sea-routes, the creation of navies, nor 
were they along the modern lines of rivalry. 
City competed with city to erect a gorgeous ca- 
thedral, to rear a superb town hall, or " state 
house," to pile brick and stone heavenward in a 
mighty belfry tower, to cause stone to blossom in 
the sunlit air, or to build a " cloth hall," which 
only on the exterior should outshine in civic splen- 
dor all others. Even religion took on intensely ma- 
terial forms. No municipality was considered first 
class which did not possess saints' relics, the bones 
of some holy man or woman, a fragment of the 
true cross, some drops of the blood of the Cruci- 
fied, or an apostolic fragment of some sort. Pil- 



FLEMISH CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 109 

grimages were very common, and these, with saints' 
days, furnished occasion for popular amusement, 
when beer and wine flowed freely and the fun 
became boisterous. Religion and business were 
closely united. The kermis^ or festival of the 
founding of the local church, became a popular in- 
stitution. Every guild had its own banner and 
usually its chapel in the cathedral, or within its own 
edifice. Notwithstanding all this outward show, 
mysticism, or religion that asks but slight aid from 
external symbols and demands life more than or- 
ganization, flourished in the hearts of those hungry 
souls who wearied of routine and ceremonies, and 
became the inspiration of art in the painting of 
the van Eycks and other founders of the Flemish 
school. 

This intensity of civic life, with its rivalries and 
jealousies, was not wholly " an affair of wool." 
Rather does it explain why so many architects go 
to the Low Countries to study the best models of 
civic architecture. As of old, the town hall, with 
its imposing facade, its heaven-pointing spire, its 
belfry that recalls history, still dominates the land- 
scape. In external imposing features and general 
effect these town halls are amazingly rich ; but 
those who look inside for corresponding splendor 
are disappointed in finding usually bare rooms or 
empty space. 

As early as a.d. 1200, the old economic system, 
based on the caravan marches across Central Asia, 



110 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

had given way before the use of ocean routes, for 
the compass had been brought by the sea-going 
Arabs from China. A new system of transport- 
ation, based on the sea, had come into operation. 
Bruges, which took its origin, not from a church, 
a monastery, or a castle, but from abridge, made 
such mighty strides in prosperity that its commer- 
cial activities first vied with and then outstripped 
those of both Venice and Genoa, the old seats of 
wealth by traffic. The Hanseatic League in the 
fourteenth century made Bruges, together with 
Liibeck, Hamburg, and Cologne, one of its four 
foreign factories. Bankers from Italy fixed their 
headquarters here, and for many decades Bruges 
was the financial centre of northwestern Europe. 
The seaport of Bruges, Damme (its dikes men- 
tioned even by Dante), was crowded with ships. 
To-day one who visits Damme wonders where the 
sea is, for it is not visible, and the dam and dikes 
are memories. This seaport and fortress town has 
become a village — not even a " dead city." Never- 
theless, the enthusiast in architecture finds charm- 
ing mediaeval tidbits. In the square was erected a 
statue of Maerlant, the father of Dutch poetry, 
and his grave is here. He gained his bread by act- 
ing as sexton and town clerk, — exactly like his 
successors, long after him, in New Netherland; 
but Maerlant's true calling was to summon the 
crusaders from the land over the sea, to put his- 
tory and the Bible into rhyme, and to tell of the 



FLEMISH CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 111 

flowers and the stars. He died in 1291, but his 
effigy rose to resurrection in bronze, in 1860, in a 
rather Dantesque statue. 

So long as the tidal river Zwyn kept its early 
vigor and its waters flowed clear, prosperity and 
Bruges were synonyms. Yet a river is like hu- 
man life. It has its youth, mid-life, and old age, 
and, according as it flows over sand or granite, 
illustrates the more strikingly the law of its being. 
It keeps its depth and current so long as it, like 
a healthy animal, is not clogged with superfluous 
and unneeded elements ; but when overloaded with 
the useless material that makes circulation slug- 
gish, the river becomes old like a human being. 
Filled with silt and sand, its channel disappears 
and its glory withers. 

When by the filling-up of the bed and the 
choking of the channel of the Zwyn, or, in eu- 
phemism, by *' the recession of the sea," Bruges 
lost direct contact with the life-giving ocean, it 
was like a man with his right arm withered. The 
splendor of the city faded and grass grew in its 
streets. To-day, Damme, like many other Flemish 
towns, once great municipalities, illustrates what 
a " dead city "is — not one buried under the waves 
of a great flood, but overwhelmed with unf athomed 
sand, left behind, and now possessing possibly as 
many beer- shops as dwellings. So, also, Zwyn- 
drecht, once flourishing, survives on the map, but 
there is no Zwyn. The river is dead and gone. 



112 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

In this period when nature aided, and when 
man exerted his noblest powers in technical skill 
and manual dexterity, Flemish cloth was in de- 
mand all over Europe and even in Asia, for the 
Italians acted as brokers and were the chief dis- 
tributors in the Orient. The excellence of the 
manufactured products of Flanders became a pro- 
verb; in England and in Germany the word 
"Flemish" was a synonym for what was supe- 
rior. Any one who takes a course of reading in 
the English of the Tudor and earlier eras will be 
struck with this fact and also with the frequent 
references to Flanders and the Flemings. From 
the Stuart period, when the Belgic provinces lan- 
guished, because bereft of their freedom and of 
their best blood, while the Dutch Republic flour- 
ished, the verbal honors and compliments went to 
the Dutch and Holland. Even yet, however, the 
" Flemish bond " in bricklaying, the Flemish or 
flat coil of rope laid on the deck of a vessel, the 
" Flemish eye," or ring at the rope's end, and the 
"Flemish horse" tell of borrowings from the old 
" Land of Jewels." Certain proverbs — " Flemish 
glory and Holland patience " ; "A Brabant sheep, 
a Gelderland ox, a Flemish capon, and a Frisian 
cow, for excellence "; and " It 's a Flemish piece of 
luck " — are still current in the Netherlands. 

In the Flemish cities trade secrets were jealously 
guarded. Perfection was insisted upon. The bril- 
liancy of the dyes, outrivaling Oriental tints and 



FLEMISH CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 113 

colors, used in cloth tapestry, added to the com- 
fort of life in the castle and to the splendor of 
pageants in many lands. In those days all the 
crafts and arts wrought together in harmony pro- 
ducing matchless triumphs in painting, textiles, 
and in architecture — the mother of all the arts. 

Yet, apart from the river's failure and the faults 
of Bruges people, it was tyranny that ultimately 
withered the love of art and fine craftsmanship, 
drove away these sources of power and beauty, 
sent its devotees into banishment, enriched Hol- 
land and England, and made a dead city of what 
was once the wealthiest of municipalities and the 
pride of commercial Europe. 

In studying Flemish mediaeval life, the Ameri- 
can " climber," who wishes to get rich quickly, 
feels most curiously at home. He realizes that in 
Flanders, money ruled in social life. Here was 
the true " Land of the Almighty Dollar." Material 
wealth was the real thing desired. " Prosperity " 
was ever the watchword. Possession of gold set 
the tone of society. Both the male and female 
animal liked fine furs and feathers and well-spread 
tables. Heavy eating and hard drinking were the 
rule. Men liked to see their wives loaded with 
rich stuffs, embroidery, and jewels. In those days, 
before the Puritans had taught us to dress more 
like men with souls and less like birds of gaudy 
plumage, the costume of the male specimen of the 
genus homo was as pavonine as was that of the 



114 BELGIUM : THE LAND OF ART 

old Scottish Highlander, or of the peacock out of 
the Indian jungle. 

Art, which is the praise of life, when set before 
us by the Flemish painters, mirrors this brilliancy 
of costume, luxuriance of the table, and massive 
splendor of civic functions. One can easily read 
the social history of Flanders on the canvases of 
her artists. The Belgic folk, then and always, liked 
rulers who lived as they themselves lived, ate plen- 
tifully, drank abundantly, wore rich clothes, and 
kept smiling faces, — as if life in the Low Countries 
was better than anywhere else under the sun, — 
and, generally, were hail fellows well met. The 
people could bear up under grievances, and even 
forget them, so long as their ruler was full of 
bonhomie and conformed to local costume, opinion, 
and personal habits. 

This was particularly true if the man in high 
office used the local speech. Let emperor, king, 
duke, count, ruward, or burgomaster, be solemn 
in mien, stern in visage, abstemious in his eating, 
and temperate, or abstinent, in his drink, take 
too serious views of life, or in any way be a social 
nonconformist, and his pathway instantly became 
one of thorns. Such a man was as surely doomed 
as is the American statesman who is " cold " to 
the " dear people." With the Flemings, half of 
the science of government meant slavish, or at 
least tactful, conformity to custom, and most of 
its art was expressed in good humor. What is 









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THE GREAT BELFRY OF BRUGES 



FLEMISH CITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 115 

said of government was for the most part true of 
religion. No parish priest was more popular than 
he who was accommodating at the confessional. 

Although the Flemings were primarily civil- 
ians, they could be soldiers at call of duty. When 
fighting as infantry, properly led and directed, 
they were well-nigh invincible. Especially did 
the crossbowmen of Flanders have a reputation, 
which they sustained on many fields at home 
and abroad.- Their bolts could pierce even armor 
of proof. Among the most popular sports at the 
fetes was that of shooting at the popinjay, or arti- 
ficial parrot, in gray plumage, which swung in the 
wind from the top of a pole. He who at, say, 
seventy paces, could bring it down with his bolt, 
was " captain of the popinjay " for the day. Besides 
noblemen, several of the famous women, such 
as the Duchess Mary of Burgundy and the 
Countess Jacqueline of Bavaria, were noted for 
their marksmanship and the smiling grace with 
which they presented prizes. Many are the pro- 
verbs, still used with gay wit and stinging sar- 
casm, about the popinjay and the hits and misses 
of would-be aspirants for the honor of winning it. 

Not less universal in evidence or civic signifi- 
cance was the bell — one of the many gifts of 
the Orient. Its functions were to call to arms, to 
summon to assembly, to make music during 
twenty-four hours. The belfry — the one piece 
of architecture whose construction and shape the 



116 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

bell dictated — was ever a notable feature in the 
Flemish city. Instead of the minaret, with the 
muezzin calling to prayer thrice daily, — one of 
those root-forces of Islam, which has so long kept, 
and will long keep the religion of Mahomet vigor- 
ous, — was the church bell in the spire, to call 
men to worship, to joy, to sorrow, to action. No 
poet has excelled our own Longfellow in recalling 
the voices of the past, from bell and belfry, as in 
his "Golden Legend" and the '' Belfry of Bruges." 



CHAPTER Xn 

THE VAN ABTEVELDES: 'tWIXT ENGLAND AND 

FRANCE 

The struggle between the Flemings and the 
French, from the twelfth to the fourteenth cen- 
tury, was really a struggle of the spirit of Teutonic 
freedom against that of Latin despotism, and had 
more of national than of local import. Even when 
England was drawn into this contest, and the men 
of the continent and the island became allies, on 
the one hand, and enemies on the other, the war, 
from the Belgic point of view, was less dynastic 
than communal. It was for a commonwealth more 
than for a reigning house. 

England's interests across the Channel were 
purely accidental. Only the possession of Nor- 
mandy, in itself and in results utterly valueless, 
costly, and temporary, was what drew English 
warriors beyond sea. The French wars did but 
exhaust England's resources, delaying by centu- 
ries the harmonious union of the four nations of 
the British Isles. Nevertheless the dynastic am- 
bitions of the English kings aided powerfully to 
maintain Flemish freedom. 

Far away from the Mediterranean, then the 
realm of trade, without a militarily defensible 



118 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

country, with no mountains, definite natural fron- 
tiers, or natural fortresses, lacking great agricul- 
tural possibilities, and without that mineral wealth 
which lies at the basis of modern prosperity, — 
for Belgium's subterranean treasures were as yet 
unsuspected, — the Flemings won their freedom 
through industry. The beginning and sure founda- 
tion of their welfare was the loom. In becoming 
weavers the men of Flanders entered upon their 
heroic epoch. By the eleventh century they had 
become powerful enough to demand from Count 
Baldwin VI a charter of rights, as we have seen. 
Then followed the building of walled cities and 
the right to elect their own local magistrates. 
Gradually civic processes triumphed over military 
methods of justice. The ordeals of combat and fire 
passed away and when the sheriff system and trial 
by a jury of citizens became fixed custom, feudal- 
ism as a form of government had become only a 
shadow. Step by step, freedom broadened down 
by precedents, from which others followed ; for 
the acquisition of one privilege led to the demand 
for and the concession of another. 

These Flemish municipalities were the wonder 
of Europe. When London, the largest city in the 
British Isles, had fewer than fifty thousand peo- 
ple, there were in Ghent two hundred and fifty 
thousand, in Ypres two hundred thousand, and in 
Bruges and Courtrai each a hundred thousand 
souls. Fifty thousand enrolled craftsmen, in more 



THE VAN ARTEVELDES 119 

than half a hundred recognized trades, besides four 
great bodies of free merchants, made Ghent their 
home. Cloth-making was the leading industry, 
and the weavers and fullers outnumbered the 
brewers and shopkeepers. Yet for success in their 
business they needed a sure and sufficient supply 
of the raw material on which they worked. On 
England's moors and meadows browsed the flocks 
that supplied the looms of Flanders with all the 
wool they needed, and the English were glad to 
sell. Thus arose a community of interests and a 
friendship, based on practical considerations, en- 
riching both the Land of the Woolsack and the 
Country of the Loom. 

This close relationship was reflected in religious 
movements, the interchange of asylum for the per- 
secuted, unfortunate, or friendless, on both sides 
of the Channel, and In the marriages of the 
Counts of Flanders with Saxon princesses. Later, 
the period of the Arteveldes (1285-1382) pro- 
vided what has been declared to be the most strik- 
ing instance of a genuine alliance to be met with 
in history. These mediaeval relations formed the 
basis on which the main threads of British policy 
on the Continent, down to the Battle of Water- 
loo, have been woven. In our day they lie at the 
basis of Great Britain's interest in the kingdom 
of Belgium, whose neutrality, notably manifested 
with her army and navy in August, 1914, was for- 
mally reaffirmed at Havre on February 14, 1916. 



120 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

The Hundred Years' War between England 
and France (1338-1453) had vast influence upon 
both the economic and political history of Belgic 
land. Bruges, as early as 1040 A.D., was the wool 
market of Europe. He who has beheld in the 
great square at Ghent the imposing bronze 
statue of Jacques (or Jacob) van Artevelde, may 
remember that it was unveiled and honored by 
Leopold, King of the Belgians, in the modern 
days of constitutional monarchy, yet he recalls 
also the days when the people ruled and the com- 
munes were at the acme of their glory. 

This leader of the masses is nicknamed " the 
Brewer," and is still so called by the unlearned. 
There is, however, no historical evidence on which 
to base the sobriquet. All the citizens were en- 
rolled in some guild, and van Artevelde's register 
was in the guild of the brewers. He was a son of 
a cloth merchant, and his mother belonged to that 
famous family of the de Groots, which in a later 
century produced the father of international law, 
Hugo de Groot, whose name is latinized as Gro- 
tius. Born about the year 1285, van Artevelde 
was made ruward or president of Flanders, and 
led the people in their revolt against Count Louis. 
He saw that the municipal idea was not broad 
enough, for the cities emphasized only local inter- 
ests, and thus created rivalry that often and easily 
ran into enmity. His purpose was greater than 
to have people cohere in municipal units. He 



THE VAN ARTEVELDES 121 

would have the cities and the citizens cohere into 
a nation. With the double purpose of rolling back 
the tide of French aggression, and of uniting all 
his people into one commonwealth, he made com- 
pact with Edward III of England. This alliance, 
offensive and defensive, was, after three years 
of preliminary discussion, completed in Brussels, 
December 3, 1339. 

King Edward, who had married Philippa, the 
daughter of the Count of Holland and Hainault, 
crossed to England to get the consent of his Par- 
liament. He left his queen as a hostage in the 
City of Looms, and there his fourth son, the fa- 
mous John of Ghent, or Gand, of which " Gaunt '* 
is a corruption, was born. His representative on 
the Shakespearean stage as " time-honored '' Duke 
of Lancaster, many of us have seen. Later, Queen 
Philippa stood as god-mother to Jacob van Ar- 
tevelde's son, named Philip. To carry out his 
scheme, Edward III borrowed large sums of 
money from the Italian firm of bankers, the Bardi 
family, and is said to have given as securities the 
state jewels, the sceptre of Edward the Confessor, 
and the sword of Richard the Lion-Hearted. This 
loan, however, was never paid, and the Bardi 
family was financially ruined. John of Gaunt be- 
came a persistent enemy of France. 

In the Hundred Years' War (1338-1453), the 
English were usually the victors, and were not ex- 
pelled from France until after three generations 



122 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

of fighting. Their success was owing chiefly to 
their possession of sea power. The great Battle 
of Sluys, June 24, 1340, may be called the begin- 
ning of England's naval glory. In this, one of 
the most sanguinary battles in marine history, in 
which Flemings helped greatly, thirty thousand 
Frenchmen, according to the uncritical estimate 
of those days, met their death. Five years of 
indecisive land fighting followed. Edward III 
gained the Battle of Crecy, without aid from the 
Flemings, on August 26, 1336. Calais, in the 
siege of which the Flemings assisted, fell on Au- 
gust 4, 1347. Philippa's part in soothing the 
wrath of Edward at the burghers' stout resistance 
has been told by the chronicler and on the can- 
vas of the artist. Calais was held by the English 
until 1558. 

Finally, as if to point the moral of the philoso- 
phers, especially in the aristocratic half of Eng- 
land which fears and hates democratic govern- 
ment, van Artevelde perished before a mob, at 
the hands of his own people, July 14, 1345, on 
the charge of securing Flanders for the Black 
Prince. 

One of the greatest statesmen of the Europe 
of his time, the schemes of Jacob van Artevelde 
were on too large a scale to be understood in his 
day. He showed his people the way into national- 
ity, but they would not take it. They were no 
more prepared, by previous discipline, for a cen- 



THE VAN ARTEVELDES 123 

tralized republic or commonwealth, than were the 
English people for one in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Their leader, van Artevelde, unchained pop- 
ular passions which he could not control and to 
which he fell a victim. The cause of Flemish fail- 
ure lay in the mutual rivalry of the cities, in which 
minds of traders, not statesmen, ruled. They 
never rose above the municipal idea or looked to 
coming generations. Even the Dutch Republic 
of 1579, beaten into shape on the anvil of war, 
was but a congeries of cities. 

The experiment of a national republic on a large 
scale succeeded only in the fullness of time on 
American soil, and after ages of preparation. Even 
then, a century of civic struggle and a great civil 
war were necessary to transform federalism into 
nationalism. Yet in the words " for ourselves and 
our posterity " lies the secret of American success. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE DECLINE OF THE COMMUNES 

After van Artevelde, there was among the 
Flemings no master mind that arose to overcome 
individualism and point the way to nationality, 
so that during the fourteenth century, in the 
struggle of the communes with their pro-French 
counts, the cities lost political power. There were 
eight years of peace in Flanders, but pestilence, 
more terrible than war, reduced the population 
one half. The Black Death, entering Europe, 
piled the dead in the streets of the cities, swept 
off nearly half the inhabitants, and interrupted 
industry and prosperity. This epidemic, called 
in modern language the bubonic plague, was the 
same as that which broke out in Manchuria in 
1910, to be quickly subdued by men of science 
called from all over the world. Probably fifty 
millions of the human race in Europe died of this 
scourge, for its visitations, in the undrained medi- 
aeval streets, when public hygiene was unknown, 
were frequent. The attention given by govern- 
ments and municipalities to cleanliness and the 
application of science has kept the plague out of 
the greater part of Europe during the last two 



THE DECLINE OF THE COMMUNES 125 

hundred years or more. To-day, nations are riv- 
als in this good work of prevention. 

A whole chapter might be written on the dis- 
eases and epidemics of the Middle Ages, which 
romancers, who describe only the sparkle and 
splendor of the period, never mention in detail. 
It was long believed that leprosy was brought in 
from the East by the crusaders, but history shows 
its existence in Europe many centuries earlier. In 
the mediaeval cities lepers, criminals, outcasts, and 
persons banned by bigotry or superstition, or con- 
siderations of hygiene, were obliged to wear some 
distinctive mark on their dress, or were branded 
by red-hot iron, like the "scarlet letter," until 
torture and marking by fire and mutilation gave 
way to the milder methods of isolation. 

In 1356 occurred an event which is pivotal in 
Belgian history, for from this date the people had 
a "constitution," to which, ever afterwards, they 
referred and which they made the rallying cry 
against tyrants. During five centuries every abso- 
lute or oppressive ruler, French, Burgundian, Span- 
ish, Austrian, or Dutch, came into collision with 
this charter, but he usually found to his cost that the 
people had an established fundamental law which 
was, in so far, something more than sentimental, in 
that it was immune from the incursions of despots. 
This fundamental law dated from the day of the 
"joyous entry" into Louvain of Wenceslas and 
his bride. Joan, daughter of the Duke of Bra- 



126 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

bant, had married Wenzel, or Wenceslas, son of 
Charles IV, Emperor of Germany, who, in the 
Golden Bull of 1349, had confirmed the charters 
issued some years before. Entering Louvain, then 
the capital of Brabant, on the 3d of January, 
they were greeted with those tokens of mediaeval 
splendor which the people loved and still love. 
The new rulers, yielding to the burghers, who 
paid duly for their rights thus assured, took oath 
to abide by the charters of the cities. This " joy- 
ous entry" of Brabant, in fifty-nine articles, 
guaranteed the rights of the people as against 
foreigners and in favor of local customs, and is 
yet well worthy of further study. The promises 
of this charter of Brabant spread also to Limburg, 
and, for five centuries, it was the bulwark of Neth- 
erlands liberties. 

To this day, the first coming of a sovereign 
ruler into the Netherlands cities is called the 
*' joyous entry," or " blithe incoming." The author 
witnessed the " joyous entry " of Queen Wilhel- 
mina into Amsterdam for her inauguration, on Au- 
gust 31, 1898. From the charter of Grammont 
down to the constitution of 1830, Belgians have 
proved the value of written guarantees of freedom, 
furnishing Americans with a grand example. 

The hopes of a new era of good feeling between 
the nobles and people were not fulfilled at once, 
for Count Wenzel adopted French views and pol- 
icies, which the working classes hated. Conflicts 




LOUVAIN CITY HALL 



THE DECLINE OF THE COMMUNES 127 

between the men of privilege and the White 
Hoods, champions of the working people, fre- 
quently took place. In 1378, the commonalty in 
Louvain, mostly weavers, arose and massacred the 
nobles and tossed their bodies out of the windows 
upon a hedge of spears below. A war, lasting three 
years, followed. With overwhelming force, Lou- 
vain was besieged and was glad to surrender to 
Wenzel, who, on the 27th of December, 1383, en- 
tered a breach in the wall as conqueror and made 
a bloody reprisal with humiliating conditions. 
After this crushing defeat, the weavers emigrated 
in large numbers to England and Holland, to en- 
rich these countries. Norfolk and the towns of 
the south and east were especially favored by the 
men of the loom. 

The people, baffled for the time in their at- 
tempts to make the communes vie in power with 
kings, were crushed, but not hopeless. On see- 
ing the storm of vengeance arising from France, 
they sought for a leader and found him in Philip 
van Artevelde, whom they summoned from ob- 
scurity and made ruward or governor of Flanders. 

This fourteenth century was a sad one for re- 
ligion, for it marked the schism of the Papacy, 
when two lines of rival popes, one in Eome, in 
Italy, and one at Avignon, in France, divided 
the allegiance of nations, families, and individuals, 
and these carried their religious hatreds into their 
feudal wars and political quarrels. The " Baby- 



128 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Ionian Captivity " of the popes in France, as it 
was called, lasted from 1309 to 1377. 

The French host marching into Belgic land 
consisted of eighty thousand men. It was an army 
essentially feudal, composed not of communal 
levies, but of nobles, squires, and men-at-arms, — 
an aristocratic body of warriors. Of the knights, 
467, mostly young men, had been newly created 
for this special invasion. Most of the Flemings 
were Urbanites, that is, for Pope Urban VI, while 
the French held to the Avignon pope, then living 
on their own soil. With religious hatred intense, 
the oriflamme, or holy flag of France, was carried 
into Flanders. This time their knights had very 
long lances that outmeasured the " Good-Day " 
pikes of the Flemish weavers, besides being more 
finely tempered and made especially for them at 
Bordeaux. On horseback they promised to be 
invincible. 

On their way into Flanders the French won 
several minor victories, and at Roosebeke (or 
Rose Brook) confronted their foes. The army of 
Ghent numbered forty thousand armed men, 
though unfortunately they were all footmen, with 
no cavalry. One of Froissart's most brilliant de- 
scriptions is of this campaign. His pages almost 
make one see the events as if in a photographic 
picture. 

The Flemings, whose weakness lay in their 
overweening confidence of victory on the morrow, 



THE DECLINE OF THE COMMUNES 129 

feasted on the evening before the battle. On the 
morning of November 27, 1382, they advanced 
through a fog, expecting to crush the centre of 
the French host. 

At the head of the invading army was the ori- 
flamme — the banner from the shrine of Saint- 
Denis, " sent from Heaven with a great mystery." 
When this was raised, the fog instantly dispersed, 
and " the sky was as clear as it had been during 
the whole year." A white dove flew many times 
round the King's battalions, and finally perched 
on the royal banner. This was hailed as a good 
omen. 

On this day the host of the Flemings, with 
their staves and spears, looked like a moving wood, 
but, as in so many other instances, the cavalry 
of the feudal age was the decisive element. With 
their extra long lances of tempered Bordeaux 
steel, the French knights charged with their usual 
battle-cries. The Flemings were unable to with- 
stand such an onset, and especially the fierce 
flank attacks made upon them. This time the 
foreigners overwhelmed the natives, who were 
quickly driven into a huddled mass and many of 
them stifled without being touched by a weapon. 
Unable to use their weapons, thousands of this 
army of mechanics died without wounds or loss of 
blood, smothered or trampled to death under the 
hoofs of the French horse. The pillagers at once 
advanced with the French men-at-arms and knifed 



130 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

the Flemings as if they were dogs, and the noise 
of axes cleaving helmets was terrific. Nothing 
could resist the enthusiasm of the young French 
knights. Yet few battles, in proportion to the 
number of corpses left on the field, were less 
bloody. Routed, the Flemings fled, only to be pur- 
sued to death. It is said that in the battle and 
drive of the fugitives, twenty-five thousand Flem- 
ings were left dead. One of the greatest trophies 
of the French, as some writers declare, was the 
recovery of the hundreds of golden spurs won 
from their fellow knights at the battle of Courtrai, 
fought eighty years before. 

The corpse of Philip van Artevelde, — his public 
career having lasted less than a year, — found amid 
the piles of the slain, was hung upon a high tree, 
for birds of prey to feast upon. On the way back, 
France's feudal army sacked Courtrai, and also at 
home punished the leaders of the French com- 
munes who had not taken part in the expedition. 
Froissart gayly describes this battle, and the fine 
arms of the gallant knights, with apparently no 
sympathy for the common people who were on 
this sad day wholly beaten. Most of Belgic land 
now came under the rule of France and was soon 
to be an integral part of the Duchy of Burgundy. 

Terrible is the memory of Eoosebeke — the 
scene of the last great attempt of the Flemish 
communes to resist their feudal masters. By a 
series of calamities, internal divisions, and dissen- 



THE DECLINE OF THE COMMUNES 131 

sions, humiliation and defeat in war, the terrible 
Black Death of 1384, the closing up of the river 
channel to the sea, the emigration of the most 
industrious artisans, Bruges and other Flemish 
towns shriveled to one tenth their former size, 
and became " dead cities." Flanders never recov- 
ered her former glory. 

This futile attempt of men to govern them- 
selves has left an awful example, which lovers of 
monarchy and absolutism have not been slow to 
improve. To those who would attain national 
unity in a democracy, it has its own lesson. It was 
out of the sevenfold heated furnace fires of expe- 
rience that the modern Belgians, happily for 
three generations a united nation, coined the na- 
tional motto now struck on all their coins — 
" Union makes strength." 

The dynasty of the Counts of Flanders is usu- 
ally reckoned to have begun with Baldwin of the 
Iron Arm (864-879), and after twenty-seven 
counts in all had ruled, the titular line ended in 
Philip the Good, who, after 1419, succeeded in 
uniting the various Belgian provinces, with the 
exception of Liege and Reckeim, into one domain, 
when the Burgundian era began. At the same 
time the line of Counts of Hainault, at which we 
shall glance further on, and that of the Counts 
of Namur, numbering twenty-three, from 908 to 
1421, and of the Counts and Dukes of Luxem- 
bourg, 963-1437, and the succession of Counts 



132 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

and Dukes of Brabant (1015-1430) were absorbed 
by Philip the Good. The line of Limburg's counts 
and dukes is reckoned from 1055 to 1279. These 
figures are at least approximately correct. 

The longest of all lines of rulers in Belgic land 
is that of the Prince-Bishop of Liege, which, from 
Notger, 972-1008, held its own, until, in the 
crash of the French Revolution, it ended in 1794. 
So far as age and dignity go, Belgium can claim 
for its nobility a long and noble record. 



CHAPTER XIV 

BUEGUNDT AND THE KNIGHTS OP THE GOLDEN 

FLCCC£ 

A Gothic or German tribe, settling in Gaul in 
the fifth century and conquered by Clovis, gave 
its name to the province of Burgundy, now in 
eastern France. For a thousand years, in the ever- 
shifting scenes of European history, Burgundy 
was the name of more than one temporary state, 
duchy, kingdom, or province of varied area and 
degrees of integrity and sovereignty. In 1384, 
Flanders, through failure in the male line of 
counts, and by marriage, was united to the Duchy 
of Burgundy, which was ruled by Philip the Bold 
(1363-1404), by John the Fearless (1404-1419), 
by Philip the Good (1419-1467), and by Charles 
the Bold (1467-1477). It was under the last two 
dukes that the great expansion of the duchy took 
place. 

To a Dutchman or Belgian, Burgundy is the 
synonym of ancestral glories and unmatched me- 
diaeval splendors. It recalls, as does the name 
of Napoleon, colossal ambitions and Titanic ener- 
gies, that are now as the base fabric of a vision. 
It suggests the fact that dukes attempted to be 
more than kings and but little less than emperors. 



134 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

These men proposed a mighty domain, that should 
overshadow both the Gallic and the Teutonic king- 
doms and all their glories; but Providence dis- 
posed to the contrary by reducing the dukedom 
to dreamland. In the height of fame, power, and 
wealth the boldest of these dukes struck against 
the impregnable rock of the liberties of a free 
people, whose weight ground him to powder. The 
anvil of democracy having worn out the hammers 
of despotism, still abides to shiver and wear out 
more. 

Chroniclers, such as Froissart and Commines, 
saw and wrote about battles, tournaments, and all 
the splendors of feudalism and chivalry, or talked 
with the men who were in them. The entertaining 
books of these writers w^ere read in England. 
From one of them, Commines, Scott drew the ma- 
terial for his famous novel of " Quentin Durward." 
This hero was one of those Scots who felt most at 
home when away from Scotland, and, in France, 
at Liege, and near by did wonderful things in love 
and war, finally gaining the hand and heart of the 
Countess of Croye, — one of the scraps of feudal 
domain, once historical, but now as imaginary as 
Zenda. Probably no other work of English fiction 
sheds so much light upon the relations of France 
to Belgic land, in mediaeval times. 

It was during the Burguudian era that the term 
"Low Countries" was first used in English speech. 
Indeed, it then seemed probable that the Belgic 



KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 135 

people might have a country and not merely sepa- 
rate cities. It was an era also when the national 
spirit was rising. In 1370, there were 32,000 
woolen factories, and the trade with cities and 
countries, as far away as Alexandria and Damas- 
cus, was great. In Ghent were 189,000 men able 
and willing to bear arms. With such industry the 
feeling grew apace that life and workmen's rights 
were worth fighting for. More than once these 
citizens and mechanics ''nailed their gauntlet to 
the castle gate." 

Such feelings reared obstacles to the ambition 
of those French princes who, by marriage, had 
added portions of the Belgic lands to their patri- 
mony. The Dukes of Burgundy made deliberate 
attempts to create a third state, that should stand 
between the two rivals divided by the Rhine. As 
we shall see, their strength was not equal to their 
ambition. Nevertheless they fathered two notable 
features of modern Europe, — the system of stand- 
ing armies and that of court etiquette. 

It is interesting to study this, one of the several 
attempts which were made to found a third state 
that should hold its own permanently between the 
two great peoples, French and German, who dif- 
fered so much in language, temperament, and civ- 
ilization. Belgic history, from the ninth century 
onward, is mainly a chronicle of attempts to cre- 
ate this third state, and varied indeed are the 
episodes and vicissitudes. At least six of these may 



136 BELGIUM : THE LAND OF ART 

be here mentioned — in 843 a.d. at Verdun, by 
Charlemagne's grandsons; in the thirteenth cen- 
tury by the Dukes of Burgundy ; by the Emperor 
Charles V, and by William of Orange, in the six- 
teenth ; by William I, King of the Netherlands, 
in the early nineteenth century ; and by the Belgian 
people in 1830. Only the last venture attained 
success. 

Mediaeval politics usually centred in a marriage. 
On the chessboard, or, rather, the crazy quilt of 
mediae valism, there were constantly chances of new 
patterns resulting in fresh combinations of old 
patchwork. This occurred especially when fathers- 
in-law died, and daughters' husbands were able 
to transfer their power from one country to an- 
other. Philip, Duke of Burgundy, whose wife was 
the daughter of Louis de Male, became Count of 
Flanders. It was the custom of the court chron- 
iclers to bestow complimentary epithets upon the 
princes who were their patrons, without much 
desert or propriety. Some of these titles were 
absurdly incongruous, when reputation was com- 
pared with reality. The leading men of the Bur- 
gundian line had such honorary titles as Bold, 
Fearless, Good, Fair, etc., placed after their names. 
Philip the Bold, however, had rightfully gained 
his, because of signal valor at Poitiers. In April, 
1384, with his wife, he made the usual pompous 
entry into Bruges and was acknowledged Count. 
His consuming ambition was to detach Flanders 



KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 137 

from the English alliance and to obtain control 
of the resources, that is, the money, of the pro- 
vince for the benefit, not of the people he governed, 
but of France. Yet the sequel showed the api3ar- 
ently unquenchable hatred of the Flemings for 
the French. Nevertheless, in 1914, as comrades 
facing the German invasion, all this changed. 

The war between the two countries, France and 
England, was still going on when the Duke and 
Duchess of Burgundy made their formal entrance 
into Ghent, the stronghold of Flemish liberty and 
the centre of Europe's wealth. In the church of 
St. Bavon, Philip took solemn oath to uphold the 
laws, privileges, and liberties of the city. On their 
part, the citizens acknowledged vassalage to 
France and promised to reject all proffers of the 
King of England and to make none themselves. 
The next year the English fleet was beaten. 

When Philip the Bold died in 1404, the thoughts 
of his successor, John the Fearless, were not in 
Flanders, but in France. In the Battle of Agin- 
court, Antony, uncle of Philip, was killed^ and 
his two sons, John and Philip, succeeded him in 
turn as Dukes of Brabant. John, who was only 
sixteen, weak and dissipated, married that remark- 
able woman and mediaeval princess, Jacqueline of 
Bavaria, daughter and sole heiress of William, 
Count of Hainault. Her career, after many vi- 
cissitudes, ended in 1436. Romantic and stormy 
as it was, it has furnished painter, novelist, and 



138 BELGIUM : THE LAND OF ART 

dramatist with endless themes. Her name fills the 
Dutchman with emotion to this day. The driest 
chronicles bud and blossom as they recount the 
adventures of this popular but unfortunate lady. 

The long story, which we have told in the 
" Young People's History of Holland," had but 
one issue — Hainault, Holland, and the other de- 
pendencies of Jacqueline became the property of 
the House of Burgundy. The line of the Counts 
of Hainault, which began with Regnier of the 
Long Neck in 915, thus ended with Jacqueline's 
abdication in 1433, after twenty-four persons had 
held the title, including the Baldwins and Jeanne 
in Constantinople, 1195-1244. 

The war dragged on in France, but meanwhile 
Joan of Arc appeared. She was captured in May, 
1430, and handed over as a sorceress to the au- 
thorities of the Church. 

Politics culminated once more in a match and 
a marriage. Philip of Burgundy, twice a widower, 
married, in 1430, the Princess Isabella of Portu- 
gal, who was granddaughter of John of Lancas- 
ter. This wedding was celebrated with vast and 
prolonged pomp, and the story of its dazzling 
wonders fills many pages in the chronicles. 

More permanent in its effects than the evanes- 
cent splendors of a marriage festival was the 
creation by Philip, in honor of his bride, of the 
Order of the Golden Fleece, in 1430. Except 
England's highest order of knighthood, founded 



KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 139 

by Edward III, that of the Garter, and now num- 
bering fifty members, including the Mikado of 
Japan, whose banner hangs in Windsor Castle, 
this Order of the Fleece Knights is the oldest in 
Europe. It was dedicated to the Virgin and St. 
Andrew. The ideas that lay at the root of its 
formation were, in their incongruity, quite equal 
to that mixture of mythology and Biblical facts 
which is found in Milton's epic of " Paradise 
Lost," or in the general conglomeration of pop- 
ular Christianity, as now expressed in its ritual, 
creed, traditions, art, poetry, and pageantry. 
Jason and his Argonauts, the Bible imagery, and 
the work of the Twelve Apostles were blended in 
one story of the Fleece Knights, whose pageant 
is so fully told in tapestry. 

Bruges being the centre of the wool trade, the 
idea of this new order of chivalry was to exalt 
and honor the business of transforming the sheep's 
covering into garments for man. The word 
"golden" is taken from the romantic quest of 
Perseus, who sought adventures, overcame diffi- 
culties, and finally won the coveted prize. Out 
of the idea of the Good Shepherd and his sheep, 
and from the mediaeval sentiment concerning two 
of the numerous mediators, supposed to be neces- 
sary between God and man, the Virgin and St. 
Andrew, the order took its origin. The motto, 
taken from circumstances of the hour, was later 
put aside for the motto of the House of Burgundy 



140 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

— "I have captured it." The grand collar con- 
sisted of a chain of alternate flints and rays, from 
which hung a sheepskin, with the head and feet 
attached. With this decoration went a rich cloak 
with hood and cap. 

Men dominated by reason rather than by fancy 
see, in the beautiful Greek story-picture of the 
Golden Fleece, a perennial pageant of human in- 
dustry — the conquest of the soil. Throughout 
the ages there is a struggle from savage nature to 
harvest-fields. The hero comes to the rude, un- 
tamed landscape, populated by creatures that are 
as hostile as dragons, fire-breathing bulls, or an 
armed host. The soil, which is at first hidden 
from view by matted undergrowth, and, in its re- 
fractory nature, is to the imagination as terribly 
hard as adamant, gives way, under intelligent 
toil, to smooth acres and soft earth, over which in 
due season is spread, as a guerdon, the golden 
fleece of bounteous harvests. 

The idea which lies at the root of all chivalry 
is the seeking and the acceptance by man, of 
a challenge to do his best. In classic days the 
stories of such heroes as Perseus, Jason, and 
Cadmus fired the enthusiasm of young men eager 
to be dared or lured to enterprise. In the medi- 
aeval age of Christianity in Europe, the Quest 
of the Holy Grail was the theme and goal of 
heroism, and such heroes as Sir Launcelot, the 
Knights of the Round Table, and others in the 



KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 141 

romances of chivalry supplied the mental food 
which brave lads and daring men craved. 

The soil is the basis of all wealth, and its pos- 
session is the potency of all rule. It must be said 
of the Burgundian dukes that, despite their harsh 
and cruel methods, they had in view one of the 
noblest enterprises — the creation of a first-class 
state in Europe. Out of many discordant ele- 
ments they hoped to bring a beneficent unity — 
" 6 pluribus unum^ In the Order of the Golden 
Fleece, beside the sovereign prince, there were to 
be twenty-four knights, who were to enjoy im- 
munity from ordinary trial by common law. Their 
personal safety was further secured from tyran- 
nical princes, by the fact that they were subject 
to trial only by their brethren and comrades of 
the order. The number of knights was soon in- 
creased to fifty-one. 

Until Philip II of Spain annulled all charters 
and trampled on all law, this privilege from arrest 
was deemed inviolable. In the case of Egmont 
and Hoorn, the Spaniard Alva broke the prece- 
dent and sent to prison and the scaffold two of his 
fellow Catholics and oath-bound knights. In 1725 
the Order of the Golden Fleece was divided into 
two branches, those of Austria and Spain, and the 
archives and treasury were removed from Brussels 
to Vienna. After the French invasion of 1790, the 
order was renewed, and still flourishes in Austria. 



CHAPTER XV 

OHAKLES THE BOLD — PAGEANTS AND 
TRAGEDIES 

What may be called the first union of the 
Belgic provinces in one state was consummated 
by Philip the Good (1396-1467), who, during 
a rule of forty-eight years, enjoyed great personal 
popularity. One of his greatest acts of states- 
manship, tending to create a nation out of dis- 
connected provinces, was his founding a Grand 
Council at Malines, which had legal jurisdiction 
over all the Belgic domain. He frequently con- 
voked in one assembly the various counts and 
dukes to deliberate upon action in common. This 
body was called the States-General, and in time 
took on the form of a parliament, in which sat 
nobles, gentry, and commons, or the Third Es- 
tate. Later the common name of each provincial 
assembly was called the States of Brabant, Flan- 
ders, Hainault, etc., there being several States- 
Particular and one States-General. 

The splendor-loving people, despite their severe 
treatment at the hands of their land's lord, liked 
many things that he did, for he was a generous 
patron of art and architecture. During his rule 
printing, which was destined to change the condi- 



CHARLES THE BOLD 143 

tions of life and thought throughout the world, 
was introduced and had its first home in Bruges 
in his time. 

Brussels, already a city of fifty thousand people 
and noted for its lace, tapestry, and carpets, was 
honored by a " joyous entry " in October, 1430, 
when Philip the Good ratified the old charters 
and granted new privileges. Twenty years later, 
in 1450, Philip made Brussels his residence. He 
laid out a park, enlarged the Caudenberg Castle, 
completed the City Hall, and crowned it with 
the golden figure of Saint Michael victorious over 
the dragon, and removed hither the archives of 
the Order of the Golden Fleece. 

This was the classic era of the splendid churches 
and town halls which long constituted the chief 
glory of Belgium. Many of these were begun or 
completed, and some, whose foundations had been 
laid generations before, received their capstone 
during Philip's lifetime. Of others, the cathedral 
at Antwerp, for example, a beginning was made. 
As the walls mounted upward to the sky, the 
realization of ultimate completion was handed 
down as a charge to the future generations. 

Despite war's destructiveness, many of the 
town halls stand in their original unity and splen- 
dor, to testify to Philip's conception of what civic 
architecture should be. 

Under Philip's patronage the two brothers, John 
and Hubert Van Eyck, laid the foundations of 



144 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Flemish art, which probably received its first 
ideas of color and technique from the decorations 
of the manuscripts of the Koran, by Moorish and 
Saracen artists, but which religiously is the out- 
flowering of the spirit of mysticism, so strong in 
that age. Almost at a bound, Flemish painting 
touched the zenith, for in " The Adoration of the 
the Lamb " are technique and elements, " color 
blood" and portraitures, never since surpassed. 
Philip sent John van Eyck to Lisbon, to paint 
the picture of his intended bride, Isabella of Por- 
tugal. The portrait in oil is the gift of Belgic land 
to the ages and the world. 

When the craft of printing was introduced into 
Europe from Asia, and, like Belgium's first art, 
under the Van Eycks, reached its perfection almost 
at once, the narrow and sordid spirit of the Bruges 
citizens is shown in their banishing from among 
them William Caxton, the great English printer, 
who learned his trade and made his type with 
Colard Maison. This pioneer, who first enabled 
our English ancestors to see their own speech in 
print, went first to Cologne, where, in 1469, he 
committed to type the address which the Bishop 
of London made when presenting the Duke of 
Burgundy with the Order of the Garter. Caxton 
issued the first printed English book, " Recuyell 
of the Histories of Troy," in 1474. 

Philip united all the provinces of the Nether- 
lands into a powerful federation, that prevented 



CHARLES THE BOLD 145 

the expansion or ingress of either France or Ger- 
many on Belgian soiL It is therefore no wonder 
that his figure looms high to both historians and 
the people. The Belgians, looking across later 
centuries of storm and stress, of disunion and of 
degradation, honor him the more because, in their 
modern unity, they have seen his ideas realized. 

If one reflects on the morals of the age, as 
shown in the chronicles, he need not wonder that 
the Reformation of the sixteenth century should, 
after long delay, come with a storm. The extrav- 
agance of the Burgundian age is astonishing. 
At times life seemed a perpetual kermis. The 
military camps were full of courtesans. At one 
of Philip's entries into Bruges the streets were 
hung with tapestry. For eight nights a stone lion 
spurted out Rhine wine free to all. At one public 
dinner the Duke's three wives, twenty-four mis- 
tresses, and sixteen bastards were present. 

Those philosophers who are fond of showing how 
man's food and drink affect his mental develop- 
ment dwell upon the change of beverage, in the 
thirteenth century, from wine to beer. Tea and 
coffee were not yet ; so the daily liquid nourish- 
ment, or stimulus, was obtained from the grape 
or barley. Some think the Belgic character degen- 
erated when beer came in. Certainly the first beer, 
made before hops were known, or used to prevent 
fermentation, was rather poor stuff, and honey 
was used to make it palatable ; in a word, it was 



146 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

little better than mead. In time the quality im- 
proved, but the weakness of Belgic folk was in 
consuming too much rather than too little. In 
some Belgian towns to-day one wonders whether 
the "estaminets" do not outnumber the families 
in the place. A Belgian youth, asked by my friend 
concerning the quality of the water in his native 
town, replied innocently, " I do not know. I never 
drank it." Exaggeration approximated fact. 

The successor of Philip was his son, the famous 
Charles the Bold, or, as one might call him, the 
Reckless and the Brutal. He had all the pugna- 
city, with little of the wisdom and moderation, 
of his predecessor. Presuming on his supposed 
popularity with the Flemings, he began his gov- 
ernment, most foolishly, with a tilt against the old 
seventh-century saint, St. Levin, by appointing his 
*' joyous entry" into Ghent on the 28th of June, 
1467, when the reveling pilgrims would be com- 
ing home from their hilarious outing. However, 
the magistrates prolonged the pious frolic until 
Monday, and Duke Charles was then duly received. 
According to custom, he rung with his own hands 
the great bell, called " Roland." 

Yet, although popular for one day, there seemed 
to come a total change in the local climate of 
feeling, because of the personal collision with a 
commoner of a duke who knew not how to con- 
trol himself and whose violent temper often passed 
beyond control. Charles took many cities, but he 



CHARLES THE BOLD 147 

could not rule his own spirit. The rabble of pil- 
grims, returning to the city, was joined by nearly 
a thousand men who had been banished and were 
now taking advantage of the general joy to return. 
Clamoring for privileges and noisy in their demon- 
strations, including both destruction of property 
and boisterous asseverations of loyalty, the Ghent- 
ers were not content to take the saint's bones 
back to the cathedral ; but, surging into the mar- 
ket square in front of the City Hall, they unfurled 
what looked like the banners prohibited in 1453, 
or it may have been the pall used to cover the 
saint's bones. To the Duke, when he heard of 
the uproar, this popular attitude was distinctly 
menacing. Charles first dispatched a messenger, 
but he not returning, the hot-headed Duke went 
in person to the market-place. There he struck 
one fellow with his riding-whip. The man struck 
dared him to do it again. In a moment more there 
would have been bloodshed, had not Groothuse, 
the Duke's attendant, showed his master the folly 
of trifling with a mob. Moving to the City Hall, 
Charles spoke to the people in Flemish and the 
Ghenters were soon in good humor. 

Then followed what seemed a practical joke, yet 
it showed that the Duke's suzerainty was more 
nominal than real. A valiant champion of the peo- 
ple, named Bruneel, climbed up to the balcony, 
and, turning to the Duke, formulated the popular 
demands in a series of questions. It was not, 



148 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

"Would you, the Duke?" but "Would you, my 
brothers assembled below," remove the bad mag- 
istrates, abolish the salt tax, allow the guilds to 
have back their banners, reopen the closed gates, 
and confirm the ancient privileges and usages ? 
Then he turned to the Duke and informed him 
that these were the wishes of the people and 
pointed out to him his ducal task and duty. 

The people then wrote out their demands and 
remained under arms in the market-place. The 
Duke, though inwardly enraged, was most con- 
cerned about his daughter, Mary, who was with 
him in Ghent. Moreover, he was badly in need 
of money and could get it only from the people, 
and he therefore yielded. Inwardly he threatened 
dire vengeance when he could take it. From 
Malines and Brussels he wrote, granting the priv- 
ileges to the four cities of Brabant. Then, having 
thus restored what his father had wrested away, 
he again vowed revenge. 

Charles was a born bully. He had the instincts 
of a soldier rather than those of a statesman. He 
neglected his duchy and loved fighting. He pre- 
ferred the tent to his castle, and action with men 
of war in the field rather than the advice of 
nobles or wise men in council. He developed the 
military art, made use of mercenaries, and may 
be called the father of the standing armies of 
Europe, as his father had been of the court eti- 
quette and routine of life. 



CHARLES THE BOLD 149 

The story of Charles the Bold has been told by 
many brilliant writers, two of whom at least were 
Americans. The perusal of their works makes the 
reader thankful that he lives in an age when the 
land is owned by the people, rather than by lords 
in armor, when law rather than might is the basis 
of authority, and when intelligence and education 
have displaced individual passion and the self- 
will of a bully who could not rule his own spirit. 

Having beaten the King of France in a battle 
near Paris, Charles, invited by the church lord 
of LiSge, next turned his attention to this city, 
whose people had incurred their bishop's dis- 
pleasure. He made his attack with fire and sword, 
and stretched four thousand of its citizens upon the 
red field. Then he leveled the walls and hanged 
a number of its principal men. 

Of St. Trond he received the abject surrender, 
when three hundred of its leading citizens, clad 
only in their shirts and with bare feet and heads, 
came to his camp bearing with them the keys of 
the city gates. Then, sending a lieutenant to take 
military possession, Charles had a breach made 
in the wall so as to ride into the place with an 
imposing cavalcade. 

Later, the Duke destroyed LiSge by fire and 
gave it up to pillage. It is said that during the 
siege and sack forty thousand persons perished. 
This was rather bloody work for one year, the 
first of his rule; but Charles never wearied of 



150 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

butchery while he lived. It is to the events and 
characters leading to the terrible scenes of Liege 
that Sir Walter Scott devotes his brilliant powers 
of description and imagination, though with gay 
freedom from the trammels of exact chronology, 
in his novel of '' Quentin Durward." 

Explanatory of the fact that the people of the 
walled towns and cities seemed to be fickle in 
sentiment — now defiant, and now abject, protest- 
ing loyalty to-day and to-morrow shouting taunts 
and curses — was the horrible situation created in 
trying to serve many masters. According as they 
expected succor from Germany, France, the Pope, 
or their fellow-citizens elsewhere, did the com- 
monalty of a city blow hot or cold, waver in al- 
legiance, or turn for allies this way or that. For 
centuries the curse of Belgium was this division 
of authority. On the fears and hopes of people 
who were never too steadfast in mind, native and 
foreign emissaries played with lies, or with truth, 
as it suited them. This alternating current, which 
of old killed unity of purpose, is now happily 
turned into light and heat that serve a nation. 

More pleasant to dwell upon and equally char- 
acteristic of the Middle Ages, were the popular 
festivities. When Charles the Bold, taking a third 
wife, married the Princess Margaret of England 
at Bruges in 1468, these were on a vast and costly 
scale. Happily for later generations, Charles loved 
art, and many of the things of beauty which he 



CHARLES THE BOLD 151 

called into being remain. He summoned one hun- 
dred and thirty-eight artists from various Belgic 
towns to decorate his palace and to furnish colos- 
sal toys, tableaux, and table ornaments in the 
form of food and drink. The fun and feeding 
lasted seven days. On the first day thirty-two 
ships, each seven feet long and high in proportion, 
with sails of silk, rigging of gold thread, gilded 
prows and sterns, were set on the board loaded 
with eatables. Alternating with these were thirty 
feudal castles, cathedrals, belfries, or town halls, 
made of pastry, having inside everything good 
to eat. 

On the second day, the guests were fed out of 
cupolas containing pasties and field tents full of 
roast meats, but tall and, like the ships, decorated 
with streamers and coats of arms in silk of many 
colors. Every day saw a new programme of table 
surprises, while between courses were spectacles, 
tableaux, and amusements of all sorts. An enorm- 
ous gilt lion, on which a fair young girl sat, moved 
into the room, while the rider, unafraid, presented 
to the Duke a banner and to the Duchess, in 
compliment to her name, a bouquet of Marguerite 
daisies. On the third day, a superbly arrayed 
Nubian rode a dromedary and made presents to the 
ladies of live birds from his panniers. On the fourth 
day, in the galleries of a tower fifty feet high and 
covered all over with silvered linen, with gilded 
window-sills and loopholes, male and female dan- 



152 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

cers tripped in and out. On the fifth day, four 
armed giants led a whale, sixty feet long. Inside 
its belly were sirens and vikings who gave a con- 
cert. Meanwhile on the table were silver dishes, 
goblets, elephants with howdahs, and deer with 
silver turrets on their backs, holding the dessert. 
Thus life in the Middle Ages was varied with al- 
ternate bloodthirstiness and joyousness. 

At the entertainment of Charles's father, even 
more curious things, including rough practical 
jokes, which were perpetrated without regard to 
one's rank or dress, made up the programme. 
Odd contrivances and mechanical figures tempted 
the curious to touch, pull, or tread on them, but 
only to be showered with water, soot, or flour, or 
to be thrashed and otherwise roughly handled. 

Even the patronage of art by dukes and princes 
partook of what was both beastly and angelic. 
Much of what is known to have formed part of 
the fun or the art is not "fit to print." The men 
of power and health patronized seraphic singers 
and painters of most rapturous visions of the 
heavenly and eternal, and then showed themselves 
lovers of the coarse and vile. Many an artist was 
placed miserably " between his conscience and 
the prince's pension." This was the glorious age 
of the painters, van Eycks, van der Goes, and 
Hans Memling. In music, the Netherlands led all 
Europe. The reputation of this art in Belgic land 
is older even than that of painting. The Low 



CHARLES THE BOLD 153 

Countries furnished to France, Germany, and 
Italy choirmasters in the churches, singers at the 
courts, and founders and faculties of schools of 
music. Long and brilliant is the list of the me- 
diaeval Netherlands composers, as given in the 
works of Belgian authors. 

Despite his undoubted love of art, Charles the 
Bold was little better than a savage in temper. 
One of his many brutalities was his treatment of 
Dinant. After murdering, by weapons of war, or 
by drowning, thousands of the people, he razed 
the city to the ground. Other atrocities, too nu- 
merous to mention, marked his reign. Happily 
for humanity, on the 2d of March, 1476, he and 
his army were beaten by the Swiss at Grandson. 
Eighteen thousand of the Burgundians, Flemish, 
and English lost their lives, but the glory of the 
victory and the benefit to the race came from the 
conquest of a disciplined feudal army by plain 
men fighting for their homes. The half-frozen 
corpse of Charles, the face partly devoured by 
dogs and wolves, and with wounds in two places, 
was found in a ditch several days afterwards. He 
was the last and most terrible incarnation of 
European feudalism. 

Thus came to an inglorious end in Belgic land 
the line of the four Dukes of Burgundy (1384- 
1467), whose rise to power was meteoric in rapidity 
and brilliancy. Its fall reminds one of the silent dust 
in air or the whizzing ground ward of a rocket stick. 



154 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

The descendant of Charles the Bold, the Emperor 
Charles V, in the sixteenth century, removed his 
remains to the Bruges Cathedral. When one looks 
at the gorgeous sepulchre, a superb work of art, 
he may wonder whether such men deserve honors 
like this. Close at hand is the equally beautiful 
tomb of his daughter, Mary, whom the bold Duke 
so tenderly loved. The Belgians have torn down 
the statues of their oppressors, Charles V, Alva, 
and others, and in their places have set up those of 
their own leaders, but they allow Charles the Bold, 
with his beloved daughter, an inviolate tomb — 
" the only two sovereigns of ancient ' Belgique ' 
of whom we have kept the ashes," as writes a na- 
tive historian. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE STORY OF TAPESTRY 

In the Land of the Loom, there arose an art 
new to Europe, which was destined to make life 
in -the castle more genial and sunny. Tapestry- 
caused stone walls to bloom, while bringing pros- 
perity to the cities. Though known to the ancients 
in Asia and Africa, this craft in mediaeval Europe 
was as fresh as a new-blown rose. Pictured hang- 
ings, of linen, wool, or silk, opened commentaries 
on the Scriptures and the classics, became books 
for the illiterate, told fairy tales to the children, 
served as manuals of devotion to the pious, in- 
creased personal comfort, and brought the textile 
art to the acme of glory. 

This " wall-clothing" passed through many styles 
and fashions, revolutions in methods and values, 
and many were the vicissitudes of weavers at home 
or industrious exiles abroad. Beginning in the 
castle or monastery, the craft passed out into the 
shops and factory, forming the basis of the wealth 
of the cities and kingdoms, with armies of crafts- 
men ever ready for war or work. 

What if only hearth-fires, torches, and candles 
dispelled the gloom of night, instead of calcium or 
electric light? To have the Bible and the classics, 



156 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

or recent history, in which living actors took part, 
thus iUuminated in colors, as fresh and brilliant 
as those of the miniatures, on the parchment of 
missal or breviary, made the mediaeval night bright 
with joy. 

It is true that contemporaneous history, as given 
to the public, was then much what it is to-day — too 
often a travesty, because of the individual victor's 
conceit and his determination to be considered the 
substance of the matter. When, with these same 
motives, were mixed theological dogma and the 
necessity of pious and edifying versions of ancient 
facts, a situation was created which for us now 
furnishes merriment. Our partisan newspapers, 
campaign biographies, and modern saints' legends 
hardly excel these mediaeval pictures in wool in their 
ability to distort facts. When artist or weaver 
wanted to get in yesterday's invention, or the 
latest bit of news or gossip, or local ban or flat- 
tery, and thus show himself up to date, the effect, 
if startling then, affords mirth now. 

Thus, at the wedding of Margaret of England 
and Charles the Bold of Burgundy, a hermit 
brings to Gondebanto, the ancestor of the latter, 
as a coat of arms, an azure cloth, embroidered 
with three golden fleur-de-lys, which an angel of 
God had brought from heaven and given him. 

When spectacles were invented, a pair was 
promptly placed upon the nose of Moses or Elijah. 
Architecture in Ghent, Bruges, or Brussels did 



THE STORY OF TAPESTRY 157 

duty for Solomon's or Herod's temple in Jeru- 
salem. In later developments, figures of spirits, 
angels, men, beasts, and demons supposed to popu- 
late heaven, earth, the sea, and the lower regions 
overcrowded the composition. This showed the 
tendency of the Flemings to over-fullness of life. 
This fault of the mediaeval craftsman was the 
opposite of the self-restrained Greek, who had a 
horror of the too-much. 

The manufacture of carpets and tapestry was 
introduced from the East through the Moors and 
Saracens, and the first imitations by the Belgic 
craftsmen were rude enough. Gradually, however, 
through skill and care, the imitators became victors. 
The best artists cooperated with the weavers to 
produce pictorial results undreamed of in the 
Orient. Painters of highest rank, even Michael 
Angelo, were glad to draw cartoons for those who 
could transform black and white on paper into 
glorious colors in wool or silk. The co(5peration 
of the great artists greatly influenced the work of 
the weavers. Even the goldsmith wrought with 
the loom men. 

It came to pass that from reproducing the 
scenes of the everyday life of the Flemish citizen, 
weaver, and farmer, and the landscape which they 
loved with passionate adoration, the artists in 
warp and woof made whole series of scenes, such 
as illustrations of the Bible narratives, classic 
episodes, campaigns of the heroes of the "Iliad," 



158 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

the wars of Alexander, the legends and fairy- 
tales of Greece and Eome, the '' Knight of China," 
the apocryphal stories of Susannah and the Eld- 
ers, Tobit and the Angel, the Maccabees, etc., 
and the stock themes of mediaeval legend. Pro- 
ceeding further, they excelled the needlecraft of 
the palace ladies, by picturing recent or contem- 
poraneous events. To-day, many of these works 
of art are documents of high value to the critical 
historian, despite their oddities and grotesque 
touches of sarcasm, of temporary belief, of wit 
and humor, of caricature or flattery. 

In time their fame became world-wide, and 
their value so great that they were worth, literally, 
more than " a king's ransom." In 1396, the Sul- 
tan Bajazet I took as prisoner a son of Philip the 
Hardy, King of France. The Turk stipulated, as a 
fair exchange, *' high warp tapestry, worked in 
Arras, in Picardy," but that they should repre- 
sent " good old stories." By studying the history 
of the Belgians, as wrought in tapestry, one be- 
comes familiar with many fascinating details, for 
he sees before him quaint and true pictures of 
mediaeval life, manners, and customs. 

The Dukes of Burgundy, for example, used 
tapestry much as modern rulers employ print and 
photographs, to commemorate events, or as those 
who cater to the general public furnish picture 
shows. Many a noble piece of wall-covering, in the 
stately homes of England, France, and Germany 



THE STORY OF TAPESTRY 159 

to-day, was originally the gift of some war-lord, 
who delighted his friends while spreading abroad 
his own glory. Not a little work was of a memo- 
rial nature. A wealthy widow might have the chief 
events in her husband's life reproduced, or a dis- 
consolate parent find relief in sorrow, by causing 
to live again in beauty the story of the young life 
of a lost child. The choicest hangings in our mu- 
seums have often a personal history, not always 
known, but of the highest human interest. 

Like jewels, tapestries have been bought, sold, 
pawned, mutilated, altered, spoiled, fought and 
died for. Besides the fabrics furnished by plant, 
sheep, or worm, gold and silver thread, colors 
from the dye vat were wrought in the looms, and 
tints from the palette were added with a brush 
upon the eyes or lips of the figures. Thus, as 
one can see to-day, many arts and crafts wrought 
in harmony. Abuses of special processes, which, 
saving labor or adding garish effects, might lower 
the quality or degrade art, were guarded against 
by the rigid rules of the guilds. In time the many 
varieties of tapestry for saloon, hall, and bedroom 
of the castle and the burghers' homes, or for spe- 
cial or humble use, were classified. Many are the 
names of tapestry taken from places where now 
none is produced. These represented Biblical 
scenes, theological notions and dogmas, as well 
as examples of devotion, martyrdom, and mission- 
ary adventure, armorial bearings and emblems, 



160 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

hunting scenes, mythology, allegories of the vir- 
tues and graces, shepherd life, the process of tex- 
tiles from the fleece to cloth or tapestry, the routine 
of the farm, etc. 

As for use, some specimens sank as low as to be 
mere bedspreads or furniture coverings. In war- 
time, several thicknesses of tapestry were often 
used by the besieged to deaden the blows of the 
catapults, or even to absorb the shock of the stone 
cannon balls hurled by the weak artillery of those 
days. In a word, the tapestry-weaver outrivaled 
even the miniaturist, genre painter, metal-worker, 
and wood-carver, — all of which furnished fields 
for artistic labors and delights. The love of fame 
and glory, the wit and the sarcasm of the mediae- 
valists, thus finding expression, appealed power- 
fully to the taste of the age, whether depicting 
the epic, lyric, amorous, martial, or domestic 
phases of the human story. 

Charles the Bold carried an assortment of 
hangings, even in his campaigns, for tent decor- 
ation, and among the spoils found by the Swiss 
at Nancy were two sets of tapestry. This fighter 
was especially fond of the story of the conquests 
of Alexander the Great. His death paralyzed the 
industry at Arras, for ducal commissions there- 
after were few. Tournay, Brussels, Bruges, and 
Middelburg suffered also. The crowning disaster 
to Arras, the most famed of tapestry towns, was 
its capture by King Louis XI, of France, in 



THE STORY OF TAPESTRY 161 

1477. Then thousands of weavers emigrated to 
England, France, and other countries, and the 
first great era of the craft closed. 

It is a good thing for us that so many of these 
men of blood and war, often tyrants and oppress- 
ors, were lovers of art. They are gone and their 
works with them, but the art of their contempor- 
aries remains. Indeed, not a few of the most cruel 
and worthless are remembered and their names 
preserved, simply because the artists' work has 
kept them alive. The golden age of tapestry in 
the Burgundian era is also that of the men of 
immortal name in art, the van Eycks, Hans Mem- 
ling, Roger van der Weyden, Gerard David, 
Quentin Matsys, and many others. Even the art 
of bell casting, with the renowned family of bell 
founders, deserves a chapter by itself. Philip the 
Good, who united the feudal fractions of Belgic 
land into one domain, was not only an uncrowned 
king in power, but was also the master of the 
richest and most prosperous part of Europe dur- 
ing the outflowering of these immortal products 
which have made Belgium the land of art. 

In the second period of the evolution of tapes- 
try, Valenciennes became a notable centre. One 
master weaver, in 1418-1419, cleaned and repaired 
several tapestries for the beautiful lady of four 
husbands and many sorrows, — Jacqueline of Ba- 
varia. On one piece, with white ground, were 
paroquets, and maidens playing harps. In 1478, 



162 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Mary and Maximilian at Brussels bought two 
famous pieces, one representing the history of the 
Emperor, his father. In all mediaeval story, the 
three Magi, or learned men, who visited Bethle- 
hem, are ''kings," and so appear in the tapestries, 
paintings, and in shrines dedicated to them. Ab- 
salom, with his long yellow hair, afforded a fine 
opportunity for the lavish use of gold thread, 
though the record says that his head, and not his 
hair, was caught in the tree branches. Blood flows 
from the head of the thorn-crowned Jesus, though 
neither ancient art nor the gospel records tell us 
of this. 

Very curiously, all the adult and normal hu- 
man figures in Flemish tapestry, that is, all except 
children and dwarfs, are of the same height. In- 
deed, this was the rule in most pictorial art until, 
after 1830, a Belgian painter created a sensation 
and revolution in tradition by representing a va- 
riety of adult figures differing in stature. 

Whole acres of the woven pictorial stuff were 
sent to Scotland, in the age of braziers, charcoal 
and wood fires, to make damp stone walls and 
floors warmer both to foot and eye. The House of 
Burgundy required so much tapestry that, in 1449, 
Philip built a vaulted building of stone for the 
storage, from fire, moth, and damp, of his rich 
hangings. Gold and silver thread were consumed 
in immense quantities. On ceremonial occasions, 
weddings, banquets, or induction into office, the 



THE STORY OF TAPESTRY 163 

walls were hidden by hundreds of the noblest 
works of art. The cartoons made by the artists 
were usually the property of the master weaver. 

At Charles the Bold's marriage to Margaret of 
York, in 1468, the woven splendor of Gideon and 
the Golden Fleece, of the Battle of Liege, of the 
Coronation of Clovis, of the history of Queen 
Esther and Ahasuerus, of the passion of our Lord, 
of the white, green, and gold checks in Margaret's 
chamber, reproducing her own heraldic colors, 
eclipsed all former triumphs. Even the roofs and 
rafters were hidden beneath a new sort of fret- 
work brought from the loom. Great hall, chapel 
stairways, and thirty-two chambers were covered 
with fresh triumphs of the palette and loom. How 
these must have turned the winter into summer ! 

During the eighteenth century, under Austrian 
rule, this noble industry languished and was rela- 
tively as faded as are the colors seen to-day in 
Hampton Court, for example, though these tapes- 
tries once rivaled in glory the gardens of Ghent. 
Nevertheless for the celebration of the victories 
of Marlborough in the Low Countries, many 
square perches of tapestry were needed to clothe 
the walls of Blenheim Palace. Shiploads of the 
same textures, gained as loot, also enriched Eng- 
land. Peter the Great brought weavers from 
Flanders, and in St. Petersburg founded the Ta- 
pissi^re, and local Russian products are still seen 
in the Czar's palaces. Yet in our time what were 



164 BELGIUM: THE LAND QF ART 

once the metropolitan, are now necropolitan cities, 
and most of the tapestry to be met with in Bel- 
gium to-day is historical. 

In the United States, after more than one trial 
and failure, the tapestry manufacture has been es- 
tablished at Williamsbridge, on the Bronx River, 
in New York City, most of the workmen being at 
first French tapissiers of hereditary skill. On a 
loom thirty-five feet long they have wrought out 
some noble pieces that now adorn the walls of our 
American homes and compare favorably with the 
old mediaeval and later triumphs of Europe. The 
industry, now twenty years old, bids fair to be- 
come permanent in America. 



CHAPTER XVII 

A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 

The young Princess Mary, the only child of 
Charles the Bold, by the English Margaret, and 
then but nineteen years of age, became the head 
of the House of Burgundy. The bold burghers 
took instant advantage of the situation. Know- 
ing that they were masters, because the military 
power of Charles had fallen and there was only 
a helpless girl in the seat of authority, they de- 
termined to strike for their liberties. 

They demanded at once from Mary a Superior 
Council, whose secretaries should be able to talk 
in both Walloon and Flemish, the abolition of 
the taxes imposed by Charles, the canceling of 
humiliating treaties, and a fresh charter which 
should embody all the old privileges. The new 
council was virtually a parliament. Only when 
she gave her assent would they award her a 
"joyous entry," such as had become customary 
in Ghent. In a word, Mary of Burgundy virtu- 
ally gave back to the people all that they had 
lost during the rule of the three dukes preceding 
her. After signing the document, in February, 
1477, Mary took oath in the Ghent Cathedral 
that she would hold to its provisions. According 



166 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

to precedent, she rang the great bell. Because 
its five strokes gave out only feeble sounds, the 
superstitious, of whom there were many, inter- 
preted this to mean that the lady would rule only 
five years. 

The French King, Louis XI, one of the great- 
est in the line of Valois, and " the perfect mo- 
del of a tyrant," now saw his opportunity. He 
asserted his pretensions to authority over the 
Flemish people, and sent as his ambassador to 
Ghent, Olivier Le Dain, a Fleming of low origin. 
In this he committed the blunder of his life, for 
on the question of dignity the Ghenters were 
fully as sensitive as kings, having no superstitions 
as to the divine right or origin of people on 
thrones. 

In certain negotiations which followed, Mary 
was not wholly truthful. The Ghenters took two 
men, her favorites, Hugonet and Humbercourt, 
formerly ministers of the oppressive dukes, and 
condemned them to death as traitors. To save 
their lives, Mary, from the window of the high 
house overlooking the market-place, pleaded with 
her people, but even her tears were of no avail to 
save their lives. Wauters's painting of this scene 
and also of her oath to respect the charter, now 
in the City Hall in Brussels, are among his strong- 
est works and grandly is the story told in art. 

Princess Mary was a very attractive figure on 
the political chessboard of European politics, and 



A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 167 

many were the suitors for her hand. In her love 
of active, outdoor life and athletic habits, she 
took after her father. She was a graceful skater, 
a bold rider, and given to hunting, especially hawk- 
ing, which she followed with zeal. 

One after the other the schemes of French and 
English rulers to secure her hand failed. The 
project of a German marriage then became very 
popular. Austria, at that time very poor and 
feeble, now began the policy of marrying the sons 
of the imperial house to rich heiresses. It was 
arranged that Archduke Maximilian — son of the 
Emperor, Frederick III, the impecunious, popu- 
larly noted as " of the empty pocket " — and the 
rich heiress should wed. It was while she was 
signing the charter at Bruges that the embassy 
from Germany which was to consummate the 
marriage arrived. Nevertheless, the bridegroom, 
though in a hurry to wed, — for his power and 
revenues began at the date of wedlock, — was not 
present. Traveling was slow in those days. The 
legal ceremony was to take place by proxy and 
according to the etiquette of the Austrian Court. 
The Duke of Bavaria was to act as the dummy 
husband. 

The etiquette of both weddings and funerals 
was peculiar to the age. In the case of an Austrian 
or other princess marrying into one of the royal 
houses of France, or into the ducal families of 
western Europe, the requirements on both sides 



168 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

were rigid. The maiden was accompanied by her 
chaperone, train of court ladies and maids, to a 
room on the frontier. In another and connecting 
apartment, and duly deputed for the occasion, 
were her future maids and ladies of the court, 
which she was to enter as queen-elect. Disrobing 
in the chamber occupied by her own country- 
women, she passed into the original of all states, 
that of nudity, and into the other room, leaving 
behind everything of clothing that had formerly 
belonged to her. Then, on the soil to which her 
destinies were now linked, and in presence of her 
new female friends, she put on the garments made 
according to the fashion of the country in which 
she was to live. In this garniture she was led to 
the altar. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
were notable for the large number of little girls 
and babies scarcely out of their cradles, into whose 
mouths weighty words and promises were put, 
only to be later forgotten or disregarded. 

In the case of the proxy marriage between 
Maximilian and Mary, both parties, the Bavarian 
Duke and the Burgundian Duchess, arrayed in 
full and stately dress, took their places upon a 
double couch, in the midst of which lay an un- 
sheathed sword, marking the line of division. At 
each of the four corners of the room was a sentinel 
^rcher who stood on guard until morning. 

When thus duly wedded, though as yet only by 
proxy, Mary added to her popularity by return- 



A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 169 

ing to the guilds the banners of which her father 
had deprived their owners. A few weeks later 
she met her husband, who was but eighteen years 
of age. At Ghent the true nuptial ceremonies 
were celebrated quietly and with that economy 
which belonged to the German method of doing 
things. 

This was the first of three notable grafting 
of female lines upon the family stem of Austria. 
The princesses were from Burgundy, Castile, and 
Aragon. From one of them, it is said, came 
that peculiar facial feature called the " Hapsburg 
jaw." Indeed, a poet of the court at Vienna 
wrote two Latin verses, in which the Austrian 
policy is outlined and lauded : " Let others make 
war ; but thou, fortunate Austria, marry ; for, 
what Mars gives to others, Venus gives to thee.'* 

The marriage thus consummated marked " the 
d^but of the House of Austria in the Netherlands." 
It was very popular, because it made groundless 
the fear among the communes that France might 
restore another line of Burgundian dukes who 
would follow the tyranny of Mary's ancestors. 
Indeed, this marriage was profoundly influential 
in the history of the Belgic provinces, for German 
influences, manners, and customs soon became pre- 
dominant and retained their ascendancy for nearly 
three centuries, or until the kings of Spain be- 
came the masters in this land, in which dynasties 
changed as often as in ever-changing China. 



170 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

All this, however, was very distasteful to the 
French King Louis XI, who had acted as god- 
father to Mary, for it seemed to him to undo the 
work of many generations of French statecraft. 
Of course there was speedy war. In the feudal 
age a marriage was usually, or at least often, the 
occasion of a fight. Germans and French met each 
other in bloody strife on the Belgic plains, but in 
the decisive battle of Enguinegate, August 7, 1479, 
the Flemish were victors, and the long struggle 
with Louis came virtually to an end. Belgic land 
was not to be swallowed up in France. 

Mary increased in popularity, her grace and 
charm being very great, she being comely and at- 
tractive in person, withal willing to allow the repre- 
sentatives of her people to carry out what they 
believed to be the best public policy. Largely 
with the idea of pleasing them, she began nego- 
tiations for a marriage between Philip, her baby 
boy, and Anne, daughter of Edward IV of Eng- 
land. Sad to tell, in the midst of her growing 
popularity, which presaged a new era of grandeur 
for the Belgian people, her life was cut short. 
When out hunting, with her husband and her fal- 
cons, in the beautiful forest of Wynendaele, near 
Thorhout, she was thrown from her horse and died 
March 25, 1482, her rights passing on to the in- 
fant Philip. 

After a brief reign, Mary died regretted. She 
lived at a time when the world was on the eve of 



A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 171 

great discoveries and men were beginning to learn 
that commerce was even more important than war 
in the development of the nation and the race. 
Yet it was the mental defect of some kings and 
many common people that they could fight better 
than they could think, any new idea being both 
difficult and uncongenial. The besetting political 
sin of the Flemings was that they could look 
at great questions only through the spectacles of 
local interest, and of some rulers that they could 
use fire and sword more easily than their brains. 

The Burgundian princes, whatever their faults, 
tried to blend together many communities into one 
state, that could hold its own with France or Ger- 
many ; in a word, to create a nation. Though pos- 
sessed of homely and robust virtues, the men of 
the Flemish communes had little foresight, and 
few of their leaders possessed the gift of states- 
manship. They threw away a unique opportunity 
of cooperating to weld the provinces between the 
Scheldt and the Rhine into one kingdom. 

In one line of policy the Burgundian dukes in- 
fluenced all the courts of Europe, and do even to 
this day. Their most effective means of taming the 
power of the local nobles and securing national 
unity, so far as this was concentrated in a person, 
was their system of court etiquette, which, though 
modernized in form, is now that of all monarchs 
in Europe. This was to call in the various vassals 
from their distant seats and to bind them to the 



172 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

person of the king, by making them officers of 
the royal household. Being thus attached to their 
prince in nominally inferior capacities, such as 
chamberlains, equerries, ushers, and the like, the 
young nobles of the greatest houses no longer 
spent their time in severely athletic exercises, such 
as hunting the deer and the wild boar in their 
mountain homes, or hawking on the heaths of 
their estates. Sedentary habits took the place of 
outdoor life. Bedecked in finery and bedizened 
with ornaments, they waited in presence of the 
monarch, adding lustre to his daily life, and in- 
cidentally increasing his power while weakening 
their own. 

Mary's death marked the beginning of the tran- 
sition of the Belgic provinces to Spanish rule. 
The men of Ghent, who had Mary's two children 
in their charge, allowed to their father, Maxi- 
milian, only nominal forms of authority. They 
appointed four guardians to act in the name of 
Philip, a boy five years old, who, at Ghent, on the 
10th of January, 1483, was solemnly inaugurated 
as Count of Flanders. Then, in order to propitiate 
France, and incidentally to get back all their an- 
cient trading privileges, they made a treaty with 
the French monarch. By this agreement, Philip 
was to pay him homage as suzerain, while Mary's 
little daughter, Margaret, was to be educated in 
France and when of age to marry the Dauphin. 
The ceremony of betrothal on French soil took 



A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 173 

place at Amboise, in June, 1483. Meanwhile, 
militant Maximilian, taking all this with bad 
grace, was getting ready to assert his rights, both 
as father and prince. 

With an army made up largely of mercenaries, 
whose motive was the hope of plunder, the angry 
German began his march, having the sympathy 
of all his fellow occupants of thrones, including 
the Pope, who had placed Ghent and Bruges under 
anathema. By craft and force, the irate widower 
had made some headway when a French army ap- 
peared in aid of the Flemings. Nevertheless by 
successful negotiations, Maximilian got himself 
declared regent. Then, as virtual victor, he en- 
tered Ghent with five thousand troops. 

But when Maximilian, having been elected King 
of the Romans, departed for Frankfort, the spirit 
of the Ghenters rose, and on his return he was 
seized and kept in the Cranenburg Prison for 
eleven weeks. Many of his German knights were 
put to death. One of them, however. Count of 
Zollern, ancestor of Emperor William of our time, 
made a clever escape. Disguised as a country 
wench, with a basket of onions on his head, he 
escaped, to become the founder of the Prussian 
House of Hohenzollern. 

In his imprisonment Maximilian showed both 
courage and calmness. He entered into negoti- 
ations with the States, promising to lead his 
German troops out of Flanders and resign the re- 



174 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

gency. Although he took solemn oath to this ef- 
fect in the Bruges market-place, Maximilian had 
to obtain bail for the faithful observance of his 
vow, for kings were not much trusted in Flanders. 
Having already a bad name, the slippery monarch 
lived up to it. As soon as he got away safely, he 
gave notice that he would not abide by his prom- 
ises. The King of France having made peace with 
the German Emperor, the Flemings were obliged 
to come to terms, pay an indemnity, and reinstate 
Maximilian as regent. In August, 1493, Maxi- 
milian succeeded his father as Emperor and handed 
over his lordship of Burgundy to Philip the Fair, 
who was inaugurated Count of Flanders, at Ghent, 
on the 26th of December, 1494. 

This was an era of mighty events. The crowns 
of Aragon and Castile had been united in Ferd- 
inand and Isabella. America had been discovered 
and the Moors expelled from Spain. All this 
stimulated the imagination of Maximilian, now 
the German Kaiser, or head of the Holy Roman 
Empire. Turning away from England, poor 
enough in his eyes, he arranged that his son Philip 
should marry Joanna of Aragon and Infanta of 
Castile, thus bringing two new grafts, in the 
female line, upon the parent family stem of Aus- 
tria ; and that his daughter Margaret should wed 
Don John, the heir of the crown of Spain. The 
power of Austria now extended east and west to 
the confines of civilized Europe. 



A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 173 

Joanna arrived at Antwerp in September, 1496, 
and her marriage with Philip took place at Lierre 
a few weeks later, but Philip's sister Margaret 
was left lonely, for Don John died in 1497. He 
was followed soon after by his sister. Later on, 
Joanna, the young bride of the Count of Flanders, 
became heiress of the Spanish dominions in Europe 
and America. An imperialistic dream of power was 
thus opened before young Philip, so that his father 
Maximilian proudly took as his own motto, the 
five vowels, A. E. L O. U., which, as the initials 
of the Latin words, Austriae Est Imperare Orbi 
Universo, meant that Austria was destined to 
rule the universe. He dreamed the same dream 
that Napoleon, who, like him, was first married 
by proxy, later cherished. 

Philip, the new Duke of Burgundy, was like 
his mother very popular with the Flemings. At 
first, he was in sympathy with the people against 
the schemes of France. In Spain he was recog- 
nized as the heir, in right of his wife, to the Spanish 
dominions, and later the same proclamation of 
honors and titles was made from the steps of the 
cathedral of St. Gudule in Brussels. The happi- 
ness of the young couple was complete, when in 
Ghent, on February 4, 1500, a son was born, 
whom they named Charles. He was destined to 
be almost as famous as Charlemagne, and to rule 
a dominion vastly greater. Under his rule the 
Netherlands provinces were to enjoy unity for 



176 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

a time and an individuality that was to be perma- 
nent. 

Yet the curtain of promise which had risen be- 
fore the eyes of the young duke upon so vast a 
panorama, speedily fell at the hand of death, 
making an end to all the earthly projects of the 
young prince, Philip. Overheated in playing ten- 
nis, he drank freely of ice water and died suddenly 
on September 25, 1506. His widow, crazed with 
grief, is known in history as Joanna the Mad. 
Having the body of her husband embalmed and 
fixed in a glass case, she carried it about wher- 
ever she went as her idol. She died only a few 
weeks before her great son's coronation in 1515. 
Artists have often reproduced on canvas this pa- 
thetic episode of a devoted widow's sorrow. 

All these events tended to the power and influ- 
ence of Maximilian, who at once put forward his 
claim to act as regent for his grandson. Unable, 
on account of other duties in distant lands, to 
superintend personally the aflfairs of government 
in the Netherlands, he made his daughter, Mar- 
garet of Austria and widow of the Duke of Savoy, 
their regent. This wise and accomplished lady set 
so good a precedent as ruler that in after times 
it became almost a proverb, that the best regent 
for Belgium was a woman. Tourists have loved 
to visit her cozy palace and see her statue at Ma- 
lines, where also rise the noble town hall and 
the cathedral, seat of the primate of Belgium, 



A CONSTITUTION: THE JOYOUS ENTRY 177 

with its soaring tower and musical chimes, while 
within are pictures by van Dyke and others to 
touch the imagination and inspire devotion. 

Except one battle, in 1513, called the Battle 
of the Spurs, in which Henry VIII of England 
took part in person, the country was at peace. 
Margaret ruled with such wisdom and skill that 
the commercial prosperity of the country was ad- 
vanced and the estate of the Dukes of Burgundy 
improved. Besides this, she concerned herself 
with the education of her nephew Charles, one of 
whose tutors was Erasmus, " the literary king of 
Christendom," and another Adrian, who became 
Pope of Rome. Charles was an exceptionally 
bright pupil and could speak, so the story ran, 
as many languages as he was heir to kingdoms — 
seventeen in number. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

CHARLES V AND THE NEW IDEAS 

The inauguration of Charles V took place in 
January, 1515. With clear ideas as to what his 
policy should be, and in order to assist Margaret 
in the government of the Netherlands, he organ- 
ized the Privy Council, consisting of elect members 
of the National Council of Malines and of the 
knights of the Golden Fleece. He then left for 
Spain, to take formal possession of the states to 
which he was heir, not only in that country but in 
Italy and America. From this era, when Belgic 
land was under a Spanish ruler, date the influ- 
ences of the Iberian Peninsula in the Netherlands, 
and such things as the spaniel, spinach, the writ- 
ten forms of courtesy, the terms for clocks, watches, 
besides many articles of use, ornament, frivolity, 
and solemnity. 

Charles excelled in arms and diplomacy, but 
was beaten outright when he ran a-tilt of ideas. 
These were to him as ghosts, which, unharmed by 
lance or battle-axe, kept confronting his helpless 
brute strength and mere political power. A new 
and wonderful mental world of thought had 
dawned upon Europe, a continent, hitherto un- 
known, had been discovered, and America had 



CHARLES V AND THE NEW IDEAS 179 

kindled man's imagination, but he did not know 
that he was in a new climate of opinion. The Turks 
had captured Constantinople, and the Greek schol- 
ars had fled, to scatter over Europe. Printing, 
known and employed in Europe for over half a 
century, had made the Hebrew records, translated 
into Dutch and German, and sold cheaply, the 
common reading of the people. The Greek New 
Testament, rendered first into elegant Latin by 
Erasmus, and then done into the plain people's 
languages by scholars, was the undoing of the old 
order of things everywhere. The reading of this 
wonderful literature, hitherto virtually unknown to 
untitled and unprivileged folks, compelled thought, 
stirred men's reason, and roused their feelings. 

It was an awful revelation of reality, when or- 
dinary folks, reading about kings, priests, and 
other anointed persons supposed to hold author- 
ity from God, found them, even according to Old 
Testament history, to be common sinners, and as 
weak, as wicked, and as foolish human beings as 
were vulgar mortals who had no titles. It was 
not only the Hebrew and Greek sacred writings 
that had been misread, but nearly all the classic 
narratives had been turned into travesty and car- 
icature. Even in the splendid library of the 
Dukes of Burgundy, still preserved in Brussels, 
there were very few original texts, but many 
romancing versions of the ancient histories, which 
were about as near to reality as are our dime nov- 



180 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

els and screaming newspaper headlines. Yet kings 
and dukes, as well as common people, had feasted 
on these stories as facts. Even Buddha, figured in 
the fictitious character as a saint, had his day of 
remembrance and celebration in the calendar, and 
his statue as St. Josaphat stood in the churches. 
What is called the Renaissance, or revival of learn- 
ing, took men back to the original narratives. All 
this meant revolution. 

Our space in this volume does not permit nar- 
ration of the events, or even interpretation of them 
except in broad outline, of the period of " The Trou- 
bles." It was soon discovered that in the main, 
the Reformation was a matter of race and geogra- 
phy. On the one hand, the military plan, to stamp 
out the supposed new ideas with fire and suppress 
them by the sword, meant really the attempt of 
the older, wealthier, more populous, and more 
highly civilized Latin South to subdue and con- 
trol the younger and more independent Germanic 
North. On the other hand, the Reformation was 
the revolt of men who would be free in mind as 
well as in body. Even in economics the coming 
age meant something different from the past, — 
new industrialism, freedom of the seas, the right 
to trade with the Orient, and to colonize and pos- 
sess countries which the Pope had given wholly 
to Portugal and Spain, when the world, by an edict 
from Rome, had been divided and assigned to 
these two nations. For Dutch or Englishmen to 



CHARLES V AND THE NEW IDEAS 181 

explore new lands, sail over and make a highway 
of the ocean, was, in Spanish eyes, a crime worthy 
of death. Protestantism meant piracy. All the 
first settlers of America from northern Europe 
were branded, in the south of Europe, as free- 
booters and sea-robbers. 

When Charles V left Spain for Germany in 
1519, he was called to confront something which 
intellectually he could not grasp, and yet, being 
so powerful a ruler, he could not ignore. He ar- 
rived almost at the moment when, in the square 
at Wittenberg, an individual monk was burn- 
ing a document sent from Italy by the Bishop of 
Eome and called, from the seals or hulla on it, a 
" bull." This missive was intended to put the 
monk out of the Church. 

When Charles returned to Belgic land, Antwerp 
gave him a reception that eclipsed all other" joyous 
entries " in splendor. Albert Diirer has given us a 
full and minute account of this, and modern Bel- 
gian artists have reproduced its glories in color 
on canvas. Elegant ladies and pretty maidens, 
clothed chiefly in gauze, welcomed him with alle- 
gory, dance, and music, in such a way as to rouse 
the Puritan spirit to reforming action. Charles 
may not have known that, under all this Renais- 
sance pomp, thought was fermenting. The Reform- 
ation certainly meant purity of morals. 

Returning to Bruges, Charles took counsel of 
an Englishman who owned the land at Scrooby, 



182 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

on which lived the fathers of the people later 
called the Pilgrims and the founders of New Eng- 
land. In the summer palace or hunting-lodge of 
this great politician and absentee Archbishop of 
York, and later, Cardinal Wolsey, these English- 
men met together to worship God and to apply 
democracy to religion, thus preparing themselves 
unconsciously to do their part in the making of 
the American Republic, while the Walloons, then 
in Belgic land, and already under persecution, 
were, with equal unconsciousness, being prepared 
to be the first settlers of the Middle States. A 
few years later they were both, Walloons and Pil- 
grims, to find a home, first in Leyden and then in 
America, as near neighbors. 

Charles then summoned the Diet of Worms, at 
which the monk that burned the " bull " was de- 
nounced as a " heretic." Those who refused to 
receive the Diet's decisions were called " Pro- 
testants," but the name of the churches which they 
organized were called "Reformed." Of the two 
terms, " Protestant " is local and political in its 
suggestion, " Reformed " is catholic or universal 
and more exactly true to history and significance 
in religion. 

The Emperor declared that the "dangerous 
opinions " which threatened to trouble the peace 
of Germany must be repressed at every hazard. 
In 1521, he initiated a policy of persecution, which 
he handed on to his son Philip II, both father and 



CHARLES V ASTD THE KEW IDEAS IS 

mm tryiog by fire and tword to mpp t e a s truths 
which are invulnerable to such wessons. On 
July 1, 1523, two Angnstinian monks, Henry Voes 
and John Eseh, werebnmed ai the stake in Brus- 
sels. 

Charles was called from his battle against ideas 
by the miwelcome attentions of armed French- 
men. His general, Henry of Nassau, eaptm e d 
Tonmay ; and this city, with the district around 
it, has ever sinee lemamed Belgian. Cliaries re- 
ffgned to his only brother, Ferdinand, the affairs of 
Austria, and in 1522 soooeeded in getting Adrian, 
one of his totors, eleeted Pope, the last one not 
an Italian* Adrian ruled but one year and died« 
From thai time tlie TtaKans increadng^y composed 
and ruled the Papaejr. Two tlnids cl Hie Comieil 
of Trent were Italians. Chades wanted ilie Be- 
formers inrited to the council, but the prelates 
refused them votes or power to discuss, so they 
stayed away. From 1545, as to geography, that 
division of Christ's Church which used the Latin 
language became the Church of the South, the 
Greek Church that of the East, and the Eef ormed 
Church that of the West and the colonixing nations 
in North America. 

Wisely Charles distributed his burdens. Then 
giving his whole attention to war. his forces, undor 
the Belgian general, Count de Lannoy, at the Bat- 
tle of Pavia, in Italy, in 1525, were so suocessfnl 
that France, Spain's great rival for world domin- 



184 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ion, was for the moment crushed, and Francis, the 
French King, was kept in prison for a year. The 
Belgians celebrated this as a national victory. At 
Bruges, in the Palace of Justice, one of the most 
renowned pieces of oak wood carving, consisting 
of historic figures ranged about an artistic fire- 
place, commemorates the event. Copies of this 
wonderful work are found in museums through- 
out the world. 

Margaret was very popular in the Netherlands. 
She understood the temperament of the people and 
generously patronized art and letters. Unfortu- 
nately, through a trifling accident, her life ended 
November, 1530. So successful had been woman's 
rule in the Netherlands that Charles appointed 
another widow, his sister, Mary, Queen of Hun- 
gary, to succeed his Aunt Margaret. 

After stipulating that she should not be re- 
quired to marry a second time, Mary accepted, 
and entered upon her brilliant career in the Neth- 
erlands. In spite of her lack of desire for such 
honors, and although the ways of the Flemings 
were distasteful to her, she gave her whole thought 
and time to her work. She did not win the same 
popularity as her predecessor, but she held faith- 
fully to her duties, until her brother abdicated 
and her nephew, Philip II of Spain, took the reins 
of authority. 

Charles, after personally superintending his 
sister's inauguration, and creating, besides the 



CHARLES V AND THE NEW IDEAS 185 

Privy Council, two other separate councils, of 
state and of finance, gave his energies to the war 
against the Turks. He hoped to unite all Christ- 
endom under the cross and by the brilliancy of 
his achievements make men forget the " new '* 
doctrines. 

One of his noblest triumphs was the capture of 
Tunis, by which eighteen thousand Christian pris- 
oners, largely Italians, were liberated. With the 
successful career of Charles V in Italy, the great 
admiral and sea-fighter, Andrea Doria, is associ- 
ated. This hero, called the Deliverer of Genoa and 
Pater Patriae, father of his country, drove out the 
French from the city of Columbus in 1528. Then, 
as conqueror, he offered the Genoese their choice 
between a republican or monarchical form of gov- 
ernment. They chose to be a republic and Andrea 
Doria ratified their choice in reconstructing their 
constitution, which remained until the outbreak 
of the French Revolution — a living model to our 
Revolutionary fathers. 

John Adams, the most learned and scholarly of 
our early Presidents, and the real father of the 
United States Navy, was much impressed by this 
generous act of the magnanimous Italian victor. 
To our Continental fathers, the Republic of Genoa, 
like that of Holland, was not the wreck of his- 
tory, but was a contemporaneous example. When, 
therefore, the warships of the United States of 
America were commissioned to fight for our na- 



186 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

tional independence, the initial one named and 
which carried the first copy of the Declaration of 
July 4, 1776, to the Dutch Island of St. Eusta- 
tius in the West Indies, was made a namesake of 
Andrea Doria, in grateful remembrance. To the 
thirteen-striped American flag without stars, which 
carried six more than the seven stripes of the 
Dutch Republic established in 1579, and whose 
Declaration of Independence in July, 1681, de- 
posed the son of Charles V, Philip II of Spain, 
the Dutch Governor, de Graeff, fired a salute of 
eleven guns. By reading the Philadelphia docu- 
ment he saw that in principle the Americans were 
the same kind of " rebels " that his ancestors had 
been. 



CHAPTER XIX 

BRUSSELS: THE GREAT ABDICATION 

Writers on both sides of the religious ques- 
tion think that, just previous to this time (1525- 
1550), the character of the Flemings and espe- 
cially the Ghenters had undergone a change from 
the days of the van Arteveldes, and that the spirit 
of liberty had degenerated into license. The con- 
trol of affairs in Ghent had passed from the mer- 
chants into a company composed chiefly of me- 
chanics. These were known as "Creesers," which 
came from a word that meant the " howlers," or 
" plunderers." At any rate, these people seemed to 
be more like what is meant by the modern term, 
" rowdies." They were not slow to put to death 
even a magistrate who disagreed with them. In 
the crisis forced upon them, because of the terrific 
grapple of Spain with France, only the wise and 
cool-headed should have guided affairs. 

When Charles demanded from the state a sub- 
sidy of 1,200,000 florins, — one third of which was 
to be paid by Ghent, which was then the richest 
city of Europe, — the Ghenters protested and re- 
fused. Margaret had several of the leading citi- 
zens arrested, when suddenly the news of the two 
sovereigns, Charles V and Francis, having met to- 



188 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

gether and held an interview was received in 
Ghent. The Creesers, not understanding what this 
meeting signified, nor knowing that a truce of ten 
years had been signed, sent a delegation to the 
French King to ask aid. They were coldly received 
and succor was refused. Since, however, the Em- 
peror was in Spain, the Ghenters were embold- 
ened and made ready to withstand a siege. 

The two sovereigns having made up their quar- 
rel, Charles V was allowed to pass through France 
with a powerful following. At the end of January 
he suddenly appeared before Ghent with an army, 
which was soon reinforced by another from Ger- 
many, nearly all of them mercenaries. Resistance 
being hopeless, the gates were opened and on the 
14th of February, 1540, Charles entered with his 
force of ten thousand men. In this year was born 
Guido de Bres (or de Bray), the spiritual leader 
of the Walloons, whose face was to the future and 
not to the past. We shall hear of him again. 

At Ghent the exulting conqueror placed guards 
at all entrances into the city and ordered the arrest 
of the popular leaders. The tally of victims slain 
by the Creesers was balanced by an equal number 
sent to death by the Emperor, who then refrained 
from further shedding of blood. Charles deprived 
the town of its chartered privileges and imposed 
new burdens, both for the war and in perpetuity, 
upon the state treasury. The prominent men were 
ordered to appear bareheaded in his presence, and 



BRUSSELS: THE GREAT ABDICATION 189 

fifty of the people had to come in their shirts, bare- 
footed and with halters round their necks. Hence- 
forth the city magistrates were to be appointed by 
the Emperor and the great bell Roland was "sen- 
tenced to eternal silence." After this the Nether- 
lands seemed crushed and quiet, remaining so, 
apparently, until the end of Charles's reign. In 
reality, the rivets, clinched by the hammer of de- 
spotism, were just ready to fly. 

We have seen that Charles had the plan of 
creating a kingdom, Belgic Gaul, that was to 
stretch from Antwerp to Cologne and from Stras- 
burg to the Belgian seaboard. Although there was 
still another French war, the twenty-five years' 
rivalry with France ended in September, 1544, by 
the Treaty of Crespy. By this the French claim 
upon Belgic territory was finally withdrawn. At 
one time Charles began negotiations to marry his 
daughter to the Duke of Orleans and to make the 
pair King and Queen of Flanders; but this French 
nobleman died of poison in September, 1545, an 
event followed by the death of Francis himself, in 
1547. 

Charles's next idea was to unite the whole of his 
vast empire, under the authority of his son, Philip 
II. This young man had been trained in the dark- 
est and gloomiest school of Spanish manners and 
self-repression. In July, 1549, he came to the 
Netherlands, with a great retinue of nobles and 
prelates reared under the same discipline and of 



190 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

much the same way of thinking and the same man- 
ners as himself. The appearance of one whom the 
Netherlanders saluted as the Father of his Country- 
was, to these pleasure-loving people, violently un- 
prepossessing. Although his subjects were profuse 
in their entertainment, their future ruler seemed 
to take no interest in what was being done wholly 
in his honor, while he chilled them by his cold 
manners. In Louvain and Brussels, Philip was pro- 
claimed as the Duke of Brabant. When, however, 
Charles, his father, took him further afield and 
recommended him to the Diet as the future head 
of the Holy Roman Empire, the scheme fell flat. 
The Germans did not want him. Charles then 
looked across the Channel. In the hope that the 
alliance of Spain and England, of which " Bloody 
Mary" was then the ruler, would be religious, po- 
litical, and permanent, he secured a union of his 
son Philip with the English Queen. In every re- 
spect this was a marriage barren of results. 

It was in the French war of 1552-1554 that 
the Walloon infantry made its fame that so long 
endured in Europe, and it was from Belgium, the 
richest part of Europe, that the Emperor had ob- 
tained the sinews of war which supported him in 
his final grapple with France. When, therefore, 
weary with the burdens of power, he was about to 
abdicate, he selected Brussels as the place for the 
impressive pageant of farewell to his thrones. 

Every symbol of power, except the Pope's 



BRUSSELS: THE GREAT ABDICATION 191 

triple tiara, had come to Charles. If he had worn 
on his breast at any one time all his honors and 
dignities, as expressed in gems and medals, he 
would have made in himself a dazzling pageant and 
been overweighted by mere avoirdupois. Yet he 
was not only disappointed in his ambitions, even 
when satiated with the earthly glory which he 
found so unsatisfying, but he was also a physical 
wreck. Weakened by rheumatism and gout, he 
was unfit for further active duty. His diseases 
were many and the great Vesalius had told him 
they were incurable and would soon carry him to 
the grave. Although of the cast of mind that is 
usually associated with " religion," he was unable 
to see auy blessings issuing from that agitation 
in Europe which he could neither control nor 
direct, but which was to cleanse the world. Al- 
ready he had determined to be a monk, at which 
resolve the wits quoted a certain proverb. 

In Brussels, in the autumn of 1555, Charles 
summoned the magnates of his empire in the hall 
of the Palace of Caudenburg. The walls were 
hung with the rich tapestry of the House of Bur- 
gundy and decorated with the banners taken from 
the French and the Saracens, at Pavia and Tunis, 
and a brilliant company assembled. Everywhere 
were the shields, heraldry, and the picturesque 
tokens of feudalism in both Church and State. 
The Knights of the Golden Fleece were present 
and in costume, but the three central figures were 



192 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Charles, the broken-down Emperor, his son Philip, 
and the young Prince of Orange. Wearing his 
necklace o£ the Order of the Fleece, the ruler of 
America and Europe, walking with the aid of a 
cane, entered and took his seat. He was leaning 
upon the shoulder of his young and handsome 
aide, who, long after his own death, was called 
'' The Silent." Among other notable forms sur- 
rounding the prematurely old man were his two 
sisters, the Queens of Hungary and France, the 
Regent Margaret, and other stately dames at his 
right hand. On the left were ranged ecclesiastics 
under mitres and red hats, knights in armor, and 
civilians in high office, robed in their embroidered 
cloaks. 

The State Councillor then read a document ex- 
plaining the motives of the abdication and the 
determination of the Emperor to enter a cloister 
in Spain. After this Charles rose. Leaning upon 
the shoulder of the man who was later to check- 
mate his schemes and spoil those of his son, he 
addressed the audience. In a long oration he de- 
tailed his campaigns, setting forth his motives, 
and declaring that he had never knowingly and 
willingly wrought injury to any one whomsoever. 
He asked forgiveness if he had done so. 

When Charles had finished, his son Philip, 
dressed entirely in black and most uninviting in 
his look and general manner, knelt to receive his 
father's blessing. After this the Eegentess an- 



BRUSSELS: THE GREAT ABDICATION 193 

Bounced her resignation of the office, which, as 
Governess of the Low Countries, she had held for 
twenty-five years. From that moment, Philip II 
became directly responsible for the government 
of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. 

According to the verbal custom of the times, 
Philip was everywhere in the Netherlands saluted 
as "Pater Patriae " (Father of his Country). It is 
noticeable that this title, given in America two 
centuries later to Washington, was first bestowed 
in Pennsylvania, by the descendants of the Dutch 
and German settlers. 

The ceremony in Brussels had special reference 
to the Netherlands, but later Charles transferred 
to Philip the sovereignty of Spain, and the next 
year dispatched William of Orange with the im- 
perial insignia to his brother Ferdinand. Whether 
because of illness, or to watch the course of things, 
Charles remained in Brussels for nearly a year. 
He sailed for Spain in September, 1556, to spend 
his time in retirement, in reflection, in amusing 
himself with clocks and watches, and in hastening 
his death by gluttony. Before he left, however, 
the Battle of Gravelines, near Dunkirk, had taken 
place, in which Egmont, the hero of St. Quentin, 
won a victory that made him the idol of the army, 
though some think that the timely arrival of some 
English warships was even of more importance, 
as a decisive factor, than the presence of the 
Flemish Count. 



194 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

The reign of Charles was for the Belgie people 
a gilded yoke. To-day, in the Friday flower- 
market of Ghent, where once stood the statue of 
Charles V, rises that of the intrepid and unselHsh 
burgher, van Artevelde, reared in 1863, the bas- 
relief representing his three treaties. 

The seventeen provinces of the Netherlands 
are represented on the shield of the coat of arms 
of William of Orange by dottings of as many ob- 
long figures, each of which stands for a brick of 
peat or turf. The hunting horns on the arms of 
Liege and the Belgian lions may also be seen, tak- 
ing one back to the age of Charlemagne. Charles 
made addition, by granting to his favorite the im- 
perial emblem of the helmet. In the stained-glass 
windows in the edifices of the Reformed Church 
in America is recalled the heroic era of the Nether- 
lands by this " accepted emblem." 

Sentimental geographers, led by Strada, the 
Spanish historian, who gives the other side of the 
history of what the Catholics call the " Troubles," 
and the Protestants the "Heroic Period," pic- 
tured the area of the seventeen provinces as form- 
ing the Belgian Lion. Going southward, these 
provinces were Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, 
Overijssel, Utrecht, Holland, Zeeland, Gelder- 
land, Limburg, Flanders, Namur, Hainault, Bra- 
bant, Luxembourg, and Artois. The bulk of popu- 
lation, numbering over two millions, was in the 
lower part of the lion's body, or in Belgie Nether* 



BRUSSELS: THE GREAT ABDICATION 195 

lands. In the northern Netherlands there were, be- 
fore 1567, not over eight hundred thousand souls, 
until the flight of the Walloons and Flemings, in 
1567, gave the seven provinces a population that 
within two generations became two millions in the 
federal republic, which under freedom became 
one of the first-class powers of Europe. One of 
the chief architects, both of the United States of 
the Netherlands and of the United States of 
America, though all unconsciously, was Philip II 
of Spain. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE BELGIC CONFESSION AND LEADER 

Although at first the Flemings led in the in- 
tellectual revolt against the Spaniards, the Inqui- 
sition, and the old feudal and church world, yet 
the Walloons were not inactive. Merchants, sol- 
diers, and travelers, who looked to Calvin and 
Geneva for chief teacher and school and books in 
French, circulated the new ideas in the southern 
provinces, while three great waves of influence, 
Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Calvinistic, from 
Switzerland and Germany, were overflowing the 
Low Countries. 

In France, three great streams of tendency, 
represented by Calvin, Rabelais, and Loyola, nour- 
ished three types of mind. Calvinism, with its 
democratic spirit, intense love of liberty, high 
ideals, and austere morals, was mighty in shaping 
the minds of the men who made the Dutch Repub- 
lic, the English Commonwealth, New England, 
and the Scotland and North Ireland of public 
schools and an educated peasantry, out of which 
rose seven Presidents of the United States. Rabe- 
lais, the spiritual father of the French Revolution, 
with frivolous skepticism, and loose, coarse morals, 
stamped his genius on France, but not for good. 



THE BELGIC CONFESSION AND LEADER 197 

The Society of Jesus, called Jesuits by their ene- 
mies, founded by Loyola, became fiercely reac- 
tionary and fanatical, only to be later suppressed 
by most of the governments of Europe. This 
three-fold stream of tendency influenced the Bel- 
gic people of both Celtic and Teutonic origins. 

Chief among the spiritual leaders of both Wal- 
loons and Flemings was Guido de Bray, the au- 
thor of the Belgic Confession of Faith. This 
document, written in French, is one of the noblest 
expressions of the Christian truths to be found 
in any language. Translated into Dutch and Eng- 
lish, it is still the standard symbol of the Reformed 
Church in America, Holland, Belgium, West 
Indies, South America, and South Africa. Those 
Netherlandish settlers, who were home-makers, 
and not squatters, who founded New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, brought over 
copies of the Belgic Confession in the ship New 
Netherland, in 1623, to the valleys of the Hudson, 
Earitan, and Delaware. Its opening article gives 
the keynote of its long strain of joyous hope in 
God, and is as follows : — 

'*We all believe with the heart and confess 
with the mouth that there is one only simple and 
spiritual Being, which we call God, and that he is 
eternal, incomprehensible, immutable, infinite, al- 
mighty, perfectly wise, just, and good, and the 
overflowing fountain of all good." 

Not least among the honors of the Belgic peo- 



198 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

pie is this noble piece of literature, flowing out 
from the heart and intellect of a grand people, nor 
least worthy of renown among the men of the ages 
is Guido de Bray. A Walloon, born in 1540 at 
Mons, he became an ardent student of the origi- 
nal writings in Hebrew and Greek, and eagerly 
adopted the ideas of the early Christians, as he 
set them forth later in the thirty-seven articles of 
the Belgic Confession. His words thus express 
the faith of both Walloons and Flemings in the 
Reformed Church in the Netherlands : — 

" We believe and profess one Catholic or uni- 
versal church. . . . This holy church is not con- 
fined, bound, or limited to a certain place, or to 
certain persons, but is spread and dispersed over 
the whole world ; and yet is joined and united in 
heart and will, by the power of faith, in one and 
the same spirit." 

Where the ancient system of popular election 
of officers in the Christian churches came into 
collision with the policy inherited from the cen- 
tralizing tendencies of the Roman Empire, is seen 
in Article XXI ; — 

" We believe that the ministers of God's Word, 
and the elders and deacons, ought to be chosen to 
their respective offices by a lawful election by the 
church." 

In a word, the Belgic Confession of Faith 
breathes and continues the noblest spirit of the 
Belgic people, as shown in the best-ordered of the 



THE BELGIC CONFESSION AND LEADER 199 

communes. It reveals the Walloon heart and in- 
tellect at their highest manifestation. The Belgic 
Confession stood for republicanism, or represent- 
ative government, which, old as primeval Ger- 
man forest tribes, or the early Christian churches, 
goes back to the days of Moses and the Hebrew 
tribes, before the centralizing policy of David or 
Solomon. Of all the creeds held in the United 
States of the Netherlands, in the South African 
Dutch Republics, and in the American churches 
and other colonies of Dutch origin from New York 
to Dakota, the Belgic Confession is the one most 
truly representative and most tenaciously held, 
from A.D. 1614, on Manhattan, even until to-day. 
Nor is it likely that Netherlanders or their de- 
scendants will willingly let its grand words die. 

The Belgic Confession, representing the faith 
of both Fleming and Walloon Christians, was 
mainly the work of Guido de Bray, who was as- 
sisted by such scholars as Adrian de Saravia, pro- 
fessor of theology at Leyden and at Cambridge, 
and Modetus, chaplain of William of Orange. It 
was revised by the renowned Francis Junius, 
pastor of a Walloon congregation in Antwerp, 
who is represented, in a famous picture, as preach- 
ing by night to his people, in a room lighted by 
martyr fires burning in the public square. The 
Confession was completed in 1561, printed the 
next year, and afterwards translated into Dutch, 
German, and Latin, and a copy was respectfully 



\ 



200 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

sent, in 1562, to Philip II. This was done in 
loyalty to the sovereign, — " even to the bearing 
of the beggar's sack," the eating of prison fare, 
suffering in the torture room, or dying on the gal- 
lows, or in the fire. The Eeformers hoped that 
Philip would see that this confession of Christian 
faith was founded on the Holy Scriptures, and 
grant toleration to his subjects. With it went an 
address, in the name of one hundred thousand 
Walloons and Flemings, in which they remon- 
strated against the cruelties which they suffered 
for conscience' sake. It breathed the spirit of 
loyalty and patriotism, and of unquailing convic- 
tion. These men were too full of the fear of God 
to quail before Philip of Spain. They declared 
that, rather than deny their Divine Master, they 
would " offer their back to stripes, their mouths 
to gags, and their whole bodies to the fire." 

Such exalted sentiments and profound prin- 
ciples did not protect the author or his fellow be- 
lievers from persecution. He was driven out, with 
the hundreds of thousands of other Belgic fu- 
gitives, and found refuge in England. There 
Edward VI gave these poor strangers, for assembly 
and worship, the church of the Austin Friars, 
which still stands in the busiest part of London. 
Guido studied theology at Lausanne and Geneva, 
in Switzerland, and then as traveling preacher 
visited many cities and congregations, both in his 
native land and elsewhere. He served as pastor 



THE BELGIC CONFESSION AND LEADER 201 

of the Reformed Church in Valenciennes, a city 
in which five sixths of the people were of the Re- 
formed faith. 

When Noircarmes was sent by the Court at 
Brussels to attack and capture the city, de Bray 
was seized, thrown into prison, and condemned 
to death. In fetters, he wrote letters of comfort 
and cheer to his wife, children, and fellow be- 
lievers. He looked forward to his end as joyfully 
as if waiting to attend a wedding-feast. Loaded 
with chains, he was hanged on the last day of 
May, 1567. In the next month, June, was born 
William Usselincx, father of the West India 
Company, under which our Middle States were 
settled. He grew up an intense exponent of the 
Reformed faith. 

The Belgic Confession of Faith, in thirty-seven 
articles, was adopted by provincial synods, held 
at various times from 1566 to 1619, at Antwerp, 
Wesel, Embden, Dordrecht (national), Middel- 
burg, and by the great " Protestant OEcumenical 
Council," or International Synod, held at Dort 
in 1619. It is acknowledged to be one of the 
clearest, as it is, in many ways, the best statement 
of the Reformed faith. 

What the Belgic intellect, Walloon and Flem- 
ing, might have become in its home land, if it had 
been fertilized by this great national symbol, is 
best understood by contrasting the mental condi- 
tion and fruitage of the people of the two coun- 



202 BELGIUM; THE LAND OF ART 

tries — tlie land of Eubens and the land of Eem- 
brandt — during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. 

To Guido de Bray, probably more than to any 
other one man, does the Reformed Church in the 
Netherlands owe the beginnings of its sturdy 
existence. With such an example of heroic con- 
stancy in their leader, the men who chose a clear 
conscience, in preference to daily bread or to 
comfort and ease, went joyfully to duty, and to 
exile, torture, or death. The emblem of " the 
churches in the Netherlands, sitting under the 
cross," was the lily among thorns, — a symbol of 
constancy and purity amid the persecution of things 
defiling, deadly, and foreign. It is no wonder, 
either, that in the army of the Dutch Republic 
the Walloon regiments made so shining a record 
of valor and devotion to the striped flag that 
stood for freedom, public schools, and represent- 
ative government. 

The full story of how the Walloons and Flem- 
ings were made to forget their woes and stifle 
their first longings for freedom of conscience, and 
how, in the Belgic provinces, which, from 1564 
to 1697, were called the Spanish Netherlands, 
only one form of Christianity was permitted under 
law, deserves a chapter by itself. So also does the 
story of the exiled and fugitive Walloons and 
Flemings, who chose exile with a good conscience, 
rather than comfort and ease in the home land. 



THE BELGIC CONFESSION AND LEADER 203 

In England, in Holland, and in America, they 
made an honorable reputation. When Champlain 
was exploring northern New York, where is the 
lake that bears his name, his men took two white 
Christian prisoners, who were called " Flemings." 
Examination proved that they were Walloons, 
for they spoke French only. 

Most notable of the Walloon refugees, in the 
eyes of those American scholars who are convers- 
ant with the archives of France, Belgium, and 
Holland, is Jesse de Forest, of Avesnes, the true 
founder of New York City, and far more deserv- 
ing of fame and a statue than are scores of those, 
natives or aliens, already represented in bronze 
or by tablet and memorial window. He first, in 
Leyden, even before the Pilgrim Fathers, en- 
rolled families as settlers in America, within 
that vast unmeasured region called Virginia. 
Dissatisfied with the British King James's restric- 
tions, he projected the colony that in the good 
ship New Netherland crossed the Atlantic in 1623, 
and began home-making in Manhattan, the up- 
per Hudson, and the Delaware Bay region. From 
him are descended the famous and numerous de 
Forests in the United States. Nevertheless, Amer- 
icans still ask, " Who are the Walloons ? " Pos- 
sibly research may show that the white Marguerite 
daisy ought to be called the " Walloon flower," 
if, indeed, it should not be the national floral em- 
blem. Certainly the story of the political exiles 



204 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

for conscience ' sake, as romantic in its main fea- 
tures as that of the French Acadians and Evan- 
geline, is worthy of a poet equal in grace and charm 
to Longfellow. 

It is hard for the disinterested student to see 
in the vicissitudes of the Walloons a story any 
the less pathetic or inspiring than that of the 
Huguenots. In the Walloonsche Bibliothek or li- 
brary, alongside of St. Peters Church, in Leyden, 
in the Klok Steeg, or Bell Alley, — the little street 
of the Pilgrims, — one may discover his ancestry, 
or learn of his genealogy, as, in this storehouse of 
names, relics, and mementoes, he traces the per- 
sonality of some refugee for conscience' sake from 
communion table to communion table, until rest 
was found in the Dutch Republic or the hospit- 
able soil of free America. 



CHAPTER XXI 

FLIGHT OF THE WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 

The story of the " Eighty Years' War for Free- 
dom" belongs to that of the Dutch and to Hol- 
land and the northern Netherlands, and for this 
we must refer the reader to Motley, Blok, Putnam, 
or our own writings; while the story of the 
*' Troubles" is Belgium's own. In 1890, in the 
light of scholarship and truth of science, there 
were erected in Brussels, on the Petit Sablon, ten 
marble statues, by native sculptors, of the contem- 
poraries of Counts Egmont and Hoorn, in a half- 
circle around the effigies of these unfortunate 
Catholic victims to the fury of Alva. They are, 
Marnix of St. Aldegonde, Abraham Ortelius, 
Bernard van Orley, J. de Locquenghien, Gerard 
Mercator, Dodonaeus, Cornelius FlorisdeVriendt, 
H. van Brederode, L. van Bodeghem, and Will- 
iam of Orange. All these names are prominent 
on the page of history. Appropriately set in the 
artistic railing around the park are forty-eight 
bronze figures representing the artistic and in- 
dustrial guilds of the sixteenth century. 

In this sketch we do but glance at the situation, 
as viewed from Belgic land. 

In Madrid, Philip listened to the arguments of 



206 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

those who, on the one hand, urged that the Nether- 
landers be treated with patience and consideration ; 
and, on the other hand, to those who declared that 
these people of the Low Countries were only "men 
of butter " and would not fight. Philip decided to 
coerce and kill, rather than conciliate and save 
alive. It was ominous that, almost to the day, ex- 
actly one hundred years after the cruel Burgundian 
Duke had been commissioned by the Pope to be- 
gin a new crusade against the Turks, Philip or- 
dered Alva to extirpate heresy. With surprising 
rapidity Alva, the ablest soldier of his age, marched 
his invincible army of "black beards" into the 
Netherlands, seized the Catholic nobles, Egmont 
and Hoorn, both Knights of the Golden Fleece, 
and without trial had them put to death in the 
public square in Brussels. He built a great citadel 
in Antwerp to overawe the people and city, and 
reared a bronze statue of himself. With ignorance 
and conceit, almost amounting to insanity, he laid 
a tax of the tenth penny upon all exchanges of 
property, — a measure which immediately united 
Catholic and Protestant against him and fanned 
even green fuel into a roaring flame. At once the 
old land of the fugitives became again the land of 
the fleeing. 

From a military point of view, there was no 
hope for the Belgic Protestants, for their land was 
not defensible, and both they and the Spaniards 
knew it. Nothing was left but flight, denial of 



FLIGHT OF WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 207 

their faith, or the flames. A hundred thousand 
Flemings and Walloons, the most industrious and 
accomplished people, skilled mechanics, and able 
business men, crossed to England. There, as lace- 
makers, weavers, skilled craftsmen, or traders, 
they enriched the island with their gifts and graces, 
and changed a wool-raising, agricultural people 
into a nation of shopkeepers, manufacturers, and 
exporters, whose wealth and power were soon to 
make a mint for the coining of proverbs. Into 
Holland and the northern Netherlands fled even 
more of the very best of the Belgic people, to 
double, in a generation or two, the population and 
power of Holland, to swell its army and navy, to 
make a republic possible, and to furnish colonists 
for what are now New York, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, and Delaware. 

Curiously enough, the most widely read author 
of a school history of Belgium, whose pious and 
patriotic paragraphs were written for home con- 
sumption and the satisfaction of the local clericals, 
almost, indeed, as a campaign document in politics, 
never mentions this flight of the best people from 
the country. In fact, the Belgic land was so drained 
of its best intellect and culture that, except in the 
plastic arts, the dearth of great men during the 
two centuries following is the pitiable and striking 
fact of Belgian history. 

The war which began by Alva's invasion in 
1567, with the exception of a truce of twelve years, 



208 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

from 1609 to 1621, lasted eighty years. During 
this period, English Church rulers, following Latin 
models too closely, kept up a campaign of con- 
formity, not quite so severe as that of the Span- 
iards, but much like it in theory, and which forced 
the people who were later the founders of New 
England to meet in Leyden as fellow exiles the 
Belgic Walloons who were already there. This 
city of the famous siege and university, in the 
republic "where religion was free for all men," 
became the classic shelter of refugees for con- 
science' sake, who helped people America; for later 
the Huguenots also found here a home. Thus 
from Leyden issued three streams of richest blood 
and noblest name for the building of the Ameri- 
can Commonwealth. 

The long war of eighty years was not one of 
pitched battles in the open field. It consisted 
chiefly of sieges, in which fortified cities were cap- 
tured by assault or through starvation. Gunpowder 
was now the chief force in ballistics. Vesalius intro- 
duced amputation. Prisoners were ransomed when 
unhurt and cared for when wounded. Hospitals, 
orphan asylums, and other means of mitigating 
the horrors of war, made noble development. 

At first, the untrained natives were utterly un- 
able to stand against the Spanish infantry, because 
mercenaries, raised chiefly in Germany and France, 
were employed, according to the general military 
custom, by the revolting patriots. When, however, 



FLIGHT OF WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 209 

in 1600, the native, republican army under Maurice 
took the field, the Spaniards were no longer a 
terror. 

During all this time (1567-1648) the province of 
LiSge, under the government of its Prince Bishop, 
took no part in the war, but, remaining neutral, 
warned off alike William of Orange and Alva of 
Spain. The latter soon gave up the task which 
he had at first undertaken with such alacrity. He 
was succeeded by other able generals, Requesens, 
Don John of Austria, Parma, Spinola, and others. 
The details of this war of sieges belong rather to 
Holland than to Belgium. 

In review, confining our story to Belgian soil, 
we note that the pacification of Ghent in 1577, 
or the union of the seventeen provinces, was 
accomplished through the efforts of William of 
Orange, but without final settlement of the ques* 
tion of the freedom of religion. Instead of its issue 
being a great Netherlands nation, the compact 
lasted but six months. 

The reason of this nullity of a grand purpose 
is not usually presented. We have the stories of 
partisans, but hardly the reality. One fact usually 
forgotten is, that at Ghent itself, the Protestant 
mob, led by three fanatics, followed the bad ex- 
ample of the Inquisition, persecuted violently their 
Catholic fellow citizens, and pillaged the churches 
and convents. In the same place where Spaniards 
had burned people alive for differences of opinion, 



210 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

these rowdy Ghenters, in the Friday market-place, 
where now stands the statue of Artevelde, burned 
alive four minor friars and two Augustinian fa- 
thers. At Bruges, a few weeks later, two minor 
friars were given to the flames kindled by brutal 
hatred in the name of "religion." Charles V and 
Philip II had set a bad example, very easy to 
follow in that age of intolerance. Throughout the 
war the atrocities were not all on one side. To- 
day Ghent is the floral capital of Belgium. It is 
chiefly in the street names that one reads the story 
of its turbulent past. 

The Duke of Anjou and his French troops, in 
whom William of Orange and his friends had 
hoped to find allies and deliverers, but who turned 
out rather to be traitors and brigands, had in- 
gloriously retreated from the Netherlands. Anjou 
failed utterly to win his new Flemish subjects. 
Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, the Italian, 
profiting by the divisions and feud between the 
Flemings and the French, entered Flanders with 
his splendid army. Philip's policy of " orthodoxy 
or desolation," like Mahomet's, of " the Koran or 
the scimitar," was suicidal, for it drove away 
hundreds of thousands of the very best people of 
the country. Nevertheless, Parma, the aristocratic 
soldier, was thoroughly in sympathy with the 
mind and purpose of his master. He captured 
many towns and reduced Ghent by famine. The 
absolute condition, which Philip imposed upon 



FLIGHT OF WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 211 

those whom his general Parma subdued, was that 
the people should have only one form of religion. 
Protestantism was to be rooted out at all hazards. 
At Tournay a noble lady, Marie de Lalaing, 
Princess of Epinay, led the defense, but the city 
fell in 1581. In the Grand Place was erected a 
statue of the heroic woman who cheered the de- 
fenders to the last. 

Those who held to the Reformed faith were 
given two years, before they were compelled to 
choose between their conscience and their daily 
bread. Parma now advanced with his large army 
upon Brussels, where men of the Reformed faith 
were in authority, with a garrison of mercenaries, 
including a regiment of Scotsmen. Adopting the 
same policy of making famine his chief ally, 
Parma compelled surrender, and on the 10th of 
March, 1585, entered the city. 

The final prize was Antwerp. To secure its fall, 
Parma cut off all land supplies and built a bridge 
across the river, which prevented boats laden with 
provisions from reaching the besieged. Every 
means were used, by its friends outside, to save 
the city ; but fire-ships, infernal machines, made 
by an Italian, Gianabelli, and an explosion which 
damaged part of the bridge, and even the cutting 
of the dykes, were all in vain, and the surrender 
was made on the 17th of August, 1585. By this 
' final victory, the northern and southern Nether- 
lands were severed, and the sovereignty of Philip 



212 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

II and the Eoman form of Christianity were es- 
tablished. People of the Reformed faith were 
given four years to settle up their affairs, before 
leaving the country. 

Delighted with his success in the Belgic pro- 
vinces, Philip now set his heart on the invasion 
and conquest of England. The fleet, or " Invincible 
Armada," which was boastingly but prematurely so 
named, sailed from Spain. Parma was to furnish 
the army of invasion. With his forces, number- 
ing fifty thousand, camped along the Belgian sea- 
board, the Italian general soon had everything 
all ready to embark across the Channel ; but the 
Dutch, well-nigh invincible upon water, kept him 
shore-bound by blockading the Scheldt and cruis- 
ing along the whole Flemish coast. The Dutch 
republicans lent their English allies one thousand 
trained naval artillerists, who had a great share of 
the actual work of sinking the colossal but clumsy 
Spanish ships. The large force of Dutch vessels, 
floating the red, white, and blue colors and the 
seven-striped flag of the federal republic, made it 
impossible for Parma's army to get away, even if 
the Armada had not been destroyed, as it really 
was, mainly by Dutch cannoneers. 

The loss of the Armada made Spain bankrupt, 
but Parma's military reputation was saved, though 
he could now get no money or supplies to pay his 
army. Philip ordered him to move into France, to 
protect the League from the power of Henry of 



FLIGHT OF WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 213 

Navarre. The Battle of Ivry, fought March 14, 
1590, has been made famous by Maeaulay's poem, 
in which Appenzell's "stout infantry," the Flem- 
ish spearmen, and the helmet of Navarre are cel- 
ebrated. Parma relieved Paris, but having no 
money for his men, he was obliged to retreat, and 
thus he lost what he had gained. The camp fever, 
which was then the scourge of armies, cut off 
this brilliant soldier on December 3, 1592, when 
but forty-seven years old, but his end was hast- 
ened by the feeling that he won neither the 
gratitude nor the confidence of his sovereign, 
whom he had served so long and faithfully. In 
death, he was laid out, according to his own 
will, in the garb of a Capuchin monk. His funeral 
was held in Brussels, but he was buried in 
Italy. 

After Parma, there was no other man who could 
revive or carry out Alva's policy of extermination. 
The only result of Philip's statecraft was to de- 
stroy the political edifice built up with such labor 
and skill by the Dukes of Burgundy and the 
genius of Charles V. Philip rejoiced at the ex- 
clusive practice of the Roman form of the faith, 
which was enforced everywhere under his rule. 
England and the northern Netherlands were made 
stronger by gaining much of the intelligence and 
thrift which had made the ancient prosperity of 
Belgium. At home workshops were empty, the 
cities ruined, industry was driven away, grass 



214 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

grew in the deserted streets of many a Belgian 
city, and the coast was blockaded. 

Almost the only industry that remained was 
that of lacemaking. This, under woman's fingers, 
saved Flanders from utter ruin, for happily, 
fashion's increasing demands for this dainty fabric 
made streams of gold flow into Belgic land. Half 
in complaint, yet rejoicing in the Midas-like touch 
of his wife and daughters, many a Fleming and 
Walloon father boasted that one of his girls might 
make as much profit as he could earn by the sweat 
of his brow. 

Altogether, Philip's rule made only blight for 
Belgic land and built up the nations he would 
have been glad to destroy. It illustrated the world- 
old peril of the bigot's motto, made of distorted 
holy writ, " first pure, then peaceable." By one 
policy, both Spain and the Belgian territory, be- 
reft of their best blood, intellect, and industry, 
were swept to swift decay. Spain was to remain 
in the grasp of medisevalism, even until our day. 
Belgium, after long tribulation, was happily to 
rise in 1830 into the modern world of freedom. 

It was the still vivid remembrance of Philip II 
and Spanish methods of government that awakened 
such profound indignation and public demonstra- 
tions of protest, when Francisco Ferrer, founder 
of the " lay schools " in Spain, was tried by court 
martial, October 11-13, 1909, and shot, at the 
instigation of the Spanish Clericals. In Brussels, 



FLIGHT OF WALLOONS AND FLEMINGS 215 

on Sundaj% November 4, 1911, a statue of Ferrer, 
in bronze, and set upon a high granite pedestal, 
was unveiled in presence of an enormous crowd 
of people. High aloft, Ferrer holds a blazing 
torch, symbolical of the rending of the darkness 
of bigotry and the coming of the full day of 
ordered freedom of conscience and safeguarded 
society, which are yet to be independent of both 
priestcraft and infidelity. 



CHAPTER XXII 

A LEASED STATE: THE GREAT INFANTA 

When the flowers bloomed in the spring of 
1598, Philip II of Spain, wearied and in mortal 
weakness, lying within the shadow of death, de- 
termined to lighten his burdens for those who 
should come after him. This he did by reverting 
to the ideas of feudalism. He would make of the 
Netherlands a fief by marrying his daughter, Isa- 
bella, to Albert, Archduke of Austria, and giv- 
ing them the usufruct. He assigned to them an 
imaginary kingdom, composied of seventeen pro- 
vinces and what was left of the dominions of the 
Dukes of Burgundy. The Act of Cession was dated 
May 6, 1598. Four months later, Philip died. 

In the double light of the actual situation and 
of after events, there was something comical about 
bestowing upon others, as a trust, seventeen pro- 
vinces, when seven of them had, nearly nineteen 
years before, issued their declaration of independ- 
ence, deposed Philip as their sovereign, and formed 
the United States of the Netherlands. Further- 
more, Philip had stipulated that, in case of failure 
of an heir, the kingdom must revert to Spain. 
Here was the old feudal idea of the fief of a 
vassal escheating to his suzerain. 



THE GREAT INFANTA 217 

Even to-day the fright of Philip's repressive 
measures are as manifest in Belgium as are the 
results of his imitator, General Weyler, in Cuba, 
three centuries later. He drove free speech and 
printing out of the Belgic provinces, but the in- 
effaceable marks of the Inquisition, the Blood 
Council, and the Spanish Fury still remain in 
history ; while most of the boys and girls in Bel- 
gium and France have been brought up from in- 
fancy to avoid as a nightmare and to have a holy 
horror of the ideas on which rest the Constitution 
of the United States and that form of Christianity 
professed by a majority of people in the progress- 
ive nations of northern Europe and in America. 

Philip III ratified the work of his father, and 
the marriage of the new rulers of the Spanish 
Netherlands was celebrated at Valencia in April, 
1599. The picture that met their gaze when they 
arrived on the soil of their kingdom was in fright- 
ful contrast to the splendor and magnificence of 
the land at the abdication of Charles V. The 
couple, riding on white horses, to fulfill an ancient 
augury, made their " joyous entry " into Brussels 
in September, amid popular acclamations. Those 
who remained in the country felt as if they had 
regained their national existence, and high were 
the hopes that material prosperity was soon to 
return. 

The new rulers gained popularity at the outset, 
for they seemed to be very earnest in effacing the 



218 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

scars of the past and in laboring for the good 
of the people. Nevertheless, they were the slaves 
of the inexorable Philip. The people longed for 
peace, but Madrid had declared that there was to 
be but one " religion," and no peace with liberty of 
conscience. The States-General were summoned to 
meet at Brussels on April 28, 1600, but while the 
delegates called attention to the poverty of the 
masses, and the necessity of resting from war, 
Albert was anxious, first of all, to get money for 
hostilities. He wanted men and material for the 
creation and equipment of a new army to open 
the campaign against the Dutch Republic, of which 
Maurice of Nassau was the Captain-General. 

When envoys were sent to The Hague, in the 
interests of peace and in the hope of union, they 
were met with chilling words ; for the Dutch could 
not forget the horrors of Philip's rule. They had 
lost all hope of reform from Spain and had no 
confidence in the royal promises. Barneveldt told 
the delegates that, so long as the Spaniards held 
the strongholds in their country, their hopes were 
as phantoms. The result of the six months' ses- 
sion of the States-General in Brussels was their 
dismission by Albert. They did not meet again for 
thirty-two years. 

Now began what their own historians call " a 
century of misery " for the Spanish Netherlands. 
From this date, despite the brilliancy of art, the 
reconstruction of architecture, and the easy-going 



THE GREAT INFANTA 219 

ways of confessors and ecclesiastics, Belgic terri- 
tory was to be for two centuries the football of 
diplomacy, the victim and plaything of ambitious 
potentates, and the battle-ground of foreigners. 
Her soil became the cockpit of Europe. Her peo- 
ple's opinions were ignored and their rights and 
interests sacrificed to Spanish or Austrian despot- 
ism. 

The struggle between the Dutch and the Span- 
iards, which now broke out afresh, was virtually a 
civil war, for the renowned " Spanish infantry," 
led by Duke Albert, was largely composed of Wal- 
loons ; while opposed to these were the republican 
army, in which several brigades were made up 
of Belgic refugees from the Inquisition. The 
flag of one army represented the will of a monarch 
in Madrid, that of the other stood for a federal 
republic, in which each of the seven states had 
an equal vote. The favorite battle-flag of Maurice 
was the orange (or red), white, and blue, seven 
times repeated, making a standard of twenty-one 
stripes. 

With his new army, largely made up of veter- 
ans, Albert sallied out from Ostend, with banners 
flying, against young Maurice and the republican 
army, only to meet with terrible defeat in the 
Battle of the Dunes, at Nieuwpoort, in July, 1600. 
The pikemen, artillery, and the English auxilia- 
ries in Maurice's army were especially effective. 
The Archduke lost six thousand men. One hun- 



220 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

dred Spanish battle-flags were hung in the hall of 
the Dutch Congress at The Hague. 

Ostend was the one place in the Spanish Neth- 
erlands occupied by the republican army. The 
Dutch had fortified the place and in its defense 
English and Scottish volunteers took a noble part, 
which is brilliantly described in " The Fighting 
Veres." The siege, maintained by Spinola, lasted 
three years, from 1601 to 1604 , and forms one of 
the most heroic episodes in the Eighty Years' War. 

Ostend was worth fighting for by the republic, 
not for itself alone, but to keep the Spaniards thus 
occupied and out of the prosperous Dutch terri- 
tory, while the northern Netherlanders, having the 
freedom of the seas, should grow richer almost 
hour by hour. They boasted that this time they 
had ten thousand ships, manned by 120,000 sailors 
under the red and white striped flag. Possession of 
sea-power became the real question at issue dur- 
ing the truce negotiations at The Hague in 1609, 
for Spain wished to prevent the Dutch from get- 
ting the rich trade of the Spice Islands and the 
Far East. So far from agreeing, the Dutch not 
only demanded and secured absolute freedom of 
navigation, but also refused to relax their block- 
ade of the Scheldt. 

After millions of dollars had been spent, eight- 
een thousand lives lost, and indescribable sufferings 
of soldiers and civilians endured, from July 7, 
1601, to September 20, 1604, the surrender of Os- 




r^I-'.'l* 
















i -i 




H 

CO 

O 
H 

» 

H 
O 



THE GREAT INFANTA 221 

tend was made on the most honorable terms. The 
victors received as their reward a mass of rubbish. 
Yet these were not the days of Alva. The bitter- 
ness of religious strife was softened by the chiv- 
alry of brave men. The Archduke Albert, in ad- 
miration of Dutch and British bravery, threw his 
arms around the bold commandant and then spread 
a costly banquet for him and all his officers. The 
townspeople, who were of the Reformed faith, 
followed the garrison, and went into exile to 
countries where conscience was free. Ostend re- 
mained a fortress until 1865, when the walls 
became boulevards. Later on, gambling-saloons, 
music-halls, sea-bathing, Sunday brass bands, and 
a thousand forms of amusement, combined with 
the salt air and delightful summer coolness, made 
one forget past history, and combined to render 
Ostend one of the most popular watering-places 
and pleasure resorts. Superb terminal facilities 
made this place a favorite point of departure from 
Belgium, and of arrival on the Continent from 
Great Britain. 

The truce declared in 1609 was to last twelve 
years. This meant the defeat and humiliation of 
Spain, the opening of Oriental commerce to the 
Dutchmen, the enrichment of the Dutch Eepublic, 
and the blockade by the Eepublicans of the 
Scheldt, which paralyzed Belgian trade. In 1621 
the war broke out again. The Spanish fleet, with 
headquarters at Dunkirk, and the army reinforced 



222 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

by German mercenaries, united to crush the 
United States of the Netherlands. 

The truce of 1609 was proclaimed at Antwerp, 
but this city gained nothing by the peace, while 
Amsterdam, Leyden, and other Dutch cities had 
to be enlarged in space, because of the increase of 
wealth and population. While Belgium was shut 
ojff from the inexhaustible wealth of commerce, 
and from the treasures of the sea and of the 
Orient, the Dutch, entering upon their golden era, 
amassed almost incredible wealth, until the re- 
sources of Holland became proverbial. 

Nevertheless, in this season of quiet in Belgic 
land, art, printing, and learning, rather than let- 
ters, attained their acme ; though literature of a 
creative sort, in the vernacular, was virtually un- 
known. In fact, this is the Golden Age of Belgian 
art, when the names of Rubens and Jordaens, 
Teniers and van Dyke, were made immortal. The 
fame of the printing-house of Plantin, who was 
followed by Moretus, penetrated all Europe. Mer- 
cator, the great map-maker, who, holding to the 
Reformed faith, had escaped the clutches of the 
Inquisition, though his companions were beheaded 
or hanged, made the famous flat projection of the 
world and helped the navigator to know the seas 
which the Dutch and other nations outside the 
world of Belgic land were to sail over. He, first, 
printed the name America, so as to cover both 
continents, North and South. 



THE GREAT INFANTA 223 

Over three hundred churches or religious houses 
were founded or revived. The Jesuits, accepting 
to a great extent the intellectual results of the 
Renaissance, rebuilt their churches, according to 
their ideas of architecture. These called for new 
interiors and furniture. The old atmosphere of 
mediaevalism and its symbols gave way to the new 
ideas of culture, as expressed in splendid marbles, 
rich colors, and an affluence of paintings that 
represented mythology and pagan beauty, almost 
as much as Christian dogma and tradition. 

The student of church architecture in Belgium 
is struck at once with the difference, often amount- 
ing to glaring and even violent contrast, between 
the outer walls and the interior decoration. From 
the street one gazes admiringly at the mediaeval, 
but within everything seems as modern as are the 
Jesuits. Two different styles of beauty, exterior 
and interior, confront him for enjoyment, but the 
taste is double, as if, at least, he partook of a 
fruit stuffed with spice and confections. 

Thus it came to pass that tons of mediaeval 
metal-work, carving, and decoration came into the 
market. The stuff was greedily bought up and car- 
ried, chiefly, to England, to equip the debased 
Jacobean architecture, or adorn the churches of 
Sir Christopher Wren and other architects in 
Great Britain. Many a parish church in England 
shows ecclesiastical curiosities of Belgian origin. 
Even in Japan and China, it may be the hap of 



224 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

the traveler to light upon these curios from the 
Low Countries. A superb candlestick and bit of 
elaborate bronze-work at Nikko, as well as the 
tapestry at Shiba, in Tokyo, are both of Belgic 
origin. Choice bits of old Flemish work are to be 
met with all over Europe. In our time, " Flemish 
oak " has become the rage in house furniture, but 
some even of our colonial churches have Belgic 
treasures, if tradition be true. 

Louvain, with its university, founded in 1423 
by John IV, the worthless husband of Jacqueline, 
became renowned as a seat of learning, but Brus- 
sels concentrated in itself the splendors of civil 
life. The Brusselaers, afraid to have mobs of 
roystering students in their streets, had gladly let 
the former capital city enjoy academic honors. 
Yet since theology became the chief product of 
Louvain, the town, except for some turbulent epi- 
sodes, is one of the quietest in Belgium. Brus- 
sels, in 1834, founded her own Free University, 
with four faculties, omitting theology. 

The code, issued on the 12th of July, 1611, 
which epitomized the laws and customs, was a 
superb piece of jurisprudence, and virtually a new 
national constitution. In 1643, the BoUandists, or 
Belgian Jesuits, began to issue their library of 
Acta Sanctorum^ or " Deeds of the Saints," con- 
tinuing its publication at intervals, even into this 
twentieth century. The great Polyglot Bible, in 
six folio volumes, called the Biblia Kegia, was 



THE GREAT INFANTA 225 

issued between 1569 and 1575. Such names as 
Justus Lipsius, the great philologist and critic, 
Kilaen the lexicographer, who made a famous dic- 
tionary of the Teutonic languages, Ortelius the 
geographer, and Mercator the maker of maps, 
adorn this era. The full story of the reconcilia- 
tion, chiefly through the ministry of art, of the 
Walloons and Flemings to the old Church and to 
Spain deserves a chapter, rather a volume, by 
itself. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE AGE OF RUBENS. THE JESUIT REACTION 

The thirty years from the publication of the 
Great Truce of twelve years, beginning in 1609, 
to 1640, may be called the age of Rubens. With 
amazing fertility and an admirable delight in vast 
undertakings, Rubens covered acres of canvas 
with scenes of animal life, themes selected from 
pagan mythology, large altar pieces and appealing 
episodes from the life of Jesus. In both his sacred 
and secular art his work is in subtle harmony with 
the nature and yearnings of his countrymen, help- 
ing vastly to reconcile them to the old faith. 

Philip III of Spain and the Archduke died 
within a few months of each other in 1621, and 
there being no child born to the Great Infanta, 
Belgic land, according to the deed of cession, 
again passed to the Spanish Crown. 

In front of the cathedral of St. Gudule, in 
Brussels, Philip IV was inaugurated as sovereign. 
The widow Isabella acted as Governor-General 
for her nephew, and the Council of Flanders was 
instituted, or revived, in Madrid in 1621. Rubens, 
possessing Isabella's confidence, kept " one foot in 
the stirrup," as he said, being often sent on errands 



THE JESUIT REACTION 227 

of diplomacy, for which he was admirably fitted 
by his fine address. 

The usual consequences of Spanish rule quickly 
manifested themselves. Government issued from 
Madrid, instead of from Brussels. Like a '' swarm 
of black locusts," the political and religious orders 
of Spaniards reentered the land to occupy most 
of the important and lucrative positions in both 
Church and State. 

When, in 1629, Prince Frederick Henry, Cap- 
tain-General of the Dutch Republic, after having 
captured Hertogenbosch (Bois le Due), the cap- 
ital of North Brabant, appeared, ^nd seemed to 
be on the point of invading Belgic land, the pop- 
ular discontent rose to its height. The provincial 
council in Belgium refused to vote further supplies 
to their Spanish masters, and the States-General 
were summoned to meet in 1632. The defection 
of the Belgic people seemed imminent, and one 
of the Belgium generals openly deserted the cause. 
There was talk among the nobles of a Catholic 
Republic. Some were anxious for a confederation 
of the seventeen provinces, and delegates were act- 
ually sent by the States-General to The Hague. 

Had the Dutch been in a tolerant frame of 
mind and willing to allow the full, open, and pub- 
lic exercise of the Roman as well as the Reformed 
form of religion, there might again have been 
made an organic union of the seventeen provinces. 
Unfortunately, Protestant bigotry was then at its 



228 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

height, and open religious liberty was not the 
mood of the Dutch at that moment. Only ten 
years before, the Calvinists, victorious at the Synod 
of Dort, had officially expelled from the country 
the Arminians, who were of the Reformed faith 
with themselves, but who held a philosophy dif- 
ferent from that officially approved. Thus those 
who were once " heretics " imitated their former 
persecutors, though more mildly, and the adher- 
ents of the new theology were temporarily expelled. 
The Dutch, advanced as they were, lost their op- 
portunity of being not merely the pioneers of tol- 
eration, but of becoming the champions of full 
religious liberty throughout the world. Conscience 
was free in the northern Netherlands, so far as 
opinions and worship were held indoors, but no 
open propagation, processions, or the public exer- 
cises of other sects, or forms, were permitted. It 
was reserved for the United States of America, 
in their Constitution, to abolish religious tests for 
office and to proclaim the equality of all religions 
before the law, — for which they were roundly 
cursed in some quarters of Europe. 

Prince Frederick Henry captured Maastricht. 
The Belgic delegate at The Hague then received 
the reply that nothing but absolute independence 
of Spain, by their fellow countrymen, would be 
considered as a basis of union, and that, in any 
event, the Scheldt must be kept closed. The 
Dutch ultimatum was answered by the refusal of 



THE JESUIT REACTION 229 

the Belgic States-General to give up their rulers, 
either in religion or politics. 

Shortly after this, on the 30th of November, 
1633, Isabella died, having seen with joy the re- 
vulsion of public opinion in favor of Spain, and 
heard of the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the 
ally of Prince Frederick Henry and the Dutch 
Kepublic. She had served her adopted country 
nobly for thirty-four years. She is well called 
the Great Infanta. Her successor, the Archduke 
Ferdinand of Austria, began his administration, 
when about twenty-five years of age, at Brussels, 
on the 6th of September, 1634. Called upon to 
resist two threatened invasions, that of the Dutch 
from the North and the French from the west, he 
followed Fabian tactics and for twelve months 
was able to baffle his enemies. At the Battle of 
Nbrdlingen, in Bavaria, in 1635, the hitherto in- 
vincible Swedish army was beaten by the allied 
forces under Ferdinand. For the arch of triumph, 
erected to celebrate the Prince's spectacular entry 
into Antwerp, in 1635, Kubens painted two co- 
lossal female figures, representing Providence and 
Abundance, which still remain at Lisle. The cam- 
paign, lasting seven years, was marked by varying 
fortunes. Ferdinand died on the 9th of November, 
1641, and in 1643 the " Spanish infantry " — 
largely composed of Walloons — was overthrown 
at Rocroi, by the renowned French soldier Cond^. 

By this time, both the Papal and the Protest- 



230 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ant divisions of Europe were nearly exhausted by 
the long struggle, and Cond^ received news that 
negotiations had begun at Munster for a definite 
peace. The King of Spain renounced all claims 
and rights over the United Provinces, the Scheldt 
was to remain closed to all ships incoming from 
the ocean, the Spanish fleet, with its headquarters 
at Dunkirk, active in intercepting settlers for 
New Netherland, was to be withdrawn to Spain, 
which had not hitherto been willing to yield to the 
idea of unhindered colonization of America, and 
the Dutch sea-power was to be unchallenged. In 
a word, nearly all the Dutch had fought for dur- 
ing eighty years was granted. Other treaties fol- 
lowed, one between the German Emperor and 
France and another between the Emperor and 
Sweden. 

The three agreements were consolidated in the 
Treaty of Westphalia, which was sworn to in the 
name of the Holy Trinity, October 24, 1648, and 
which concluded at once both the Thirty Years* 
War in Germany and the Eighty Years' War in 
the Netherlands. During all this time the Spanish 
Netherlands, or Belgic land, had suffered more 
than any of the states of Europe, and yet by the 
conclusion of these treaties the national existence 
of her people was made still more problematical, 
her civil and political rights were cut off, and her 
powers of making material progress were left al- 
most paralyzed. Her fortunes were riveted anew 



THE JESUIT REACTION 231 

to the increasing decrepitude of Spain, now a 
" broken-backed tiger." 

The work of reconciling the Belgic people to 
the old order of things, in Church and State, had 
been committed chiefly to Spanish members of the 
order xof the Society of Jesus, founded in 1539 
and popularly called Jesuits, then in the vigor of 
its early life. Two of their most powerful means 
of influence lay in the school and the confessional. 
For the most part, the Jesuits were polished gen- 
tlemen and able teachers. Instead of living in the 
rural districts, they dwelt in cities and were in- 
terested in society, art, and architecture, which, 
by adaptation to the times, they made use of to 
strengthen the Church in the new age. The basis 
of their culture was Latin and mathematics, but 
they added vast improvements to the curriculum 
of the mediaeval schools, formulating courses of 
study and grouping pupils into classes. They cul- 
tivated youthful zeal and diligence by competitive 
examinations and the award of prizes. Under their 
editorship editions of the ancient authors were 
printed, and pupils were trained to write verses, 
theses, and orations in elegant Latin. Above all, 
they made a serious business of politeness, address, 
and fine manners, introducing this discipline as a 
part of the daily routine. At the Confessional they 
were, usually, very accommodating, while in the- 
ology they were fiercely reactionary. 

Very curiously, we Americans owe much of the 



232 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

invaluable example of refinement and dignified 
courtesy set by our early Presidents, Washing, 
ton, Madison, and Monroe, before a young nation 
just "carved out of the backwoods," to a Jesuit, 
Father Leonard Perin. Posthumous but real was 
the influence of this man, who lived in the Wal- 
loon district of France. Through his little book, 
" the lif eblood of a master spirit," he taught cour- 
tesy to later generations. He deserves a memorial 
from Americans. 

In that part of France, once Belgic territory 
and the old Walloon land, is a town on the Maas 
River, called Stenai. Here, in 1567, the year of 
Alva's invasion, Leonard Perin was born. In 
scholarship, his Latinity and French were both 
unusually fine, and he became professor of the 
humanities at Paris. He was chosen by his bishop 
to translate into Latin a manual on civility for 
the use of the students in the Jesuit college of La 
Fleche. Perin did so, adding a chapter of his 
own on manners at table. This was printed in six- 
teenmo, in 1617, and after various enlarged edi- 
tions, plagiarisms, and translations, in English 
among others, the book was carried to America by 
a French Reformed pastor to Fredericksburg, Vir- 
ginia. This gentleman kept a school, where in- 
struction in politeness was part of the daily order 
of studies, and in which were educated three boys 
who became Presidents of the United States. 

After George Washington had been made, by 



THE JESUIT REACTION 233 

foolish biographers, a sort of American deity, it 
was long and easily imagined that, when a little 
boy, he had been such an insufferable prig as to 
be the original author of those very mature one 
hundred and ten " Rules of Civility," the last one 
reading, " Labor to keep alive in your Breast that 
little Spark of Celestial Fire called Conscience." 
Since the manuscript of George Washington's 
school copy-book, albeit well nibbled by garret 
mice at Mount Vernon, has been found, and the 
true history of the "Rules of Civility " recovered, 
— ninety out of the one hundred and ten rules 
being found in Father Perin's manual, — we are 
all the more grateful to the good Jesuit and the 
teacher of that true gentleman, the real Wash- 
ington, so much more winsome and inspiring than 
the creature of popular mythology. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS 

The story of Belgium, from the Peace of Mun- 
ster, in 1648, until the national revolution of 1830, 
is not of great interest to the general reader. It is 
simply that of a house of bondage, in which the in- 
mates from time to time exchanged masters, but 
remained ever under taskmasters. The tyrants 
changed, but the burden was borne in monotony. 
The polite duels of diplomacy occurred in lands 
afar, but the bloody battles of armed hosts were 
fought on the soil of the Low Countries. For nearly 
two hundred years this unhappy land was success- 
ively the property of Spain, Austria, the French 
Revolutionists, Napoleon, and the Dutch. While 
armies of aliens ravaged their fields and despoiled 
their property, the Belgians had no effective voice, 
for they were not a nation. European congresses 
transferred them like serfs or cattle, without in- 
quiring into their feelings or asking for their 
opinions. 

From the Peace of Munster until the Congress 
of Vienna, in 1814, the ruling idea in the inter- 
national law of Europe was the "Balance of 
Power," or just equilibrium of state forces. In the 
name of this doctrine most of the wars were fought 



THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS 235 

and diplomatic adjustments made. British state- 
craft, therefore, furnishes the key which unlocks 
most of the intricacies of diplomacy, with its alli- 
ances and reactions, and explains the meaning of 
war and peace. 

There was, first, the long duel between William 
III of Holland and England. Belgic land was 
repeatedly invaded from all sides. The Edict of 
Nantes was revoked in 1688, the Palatinate in 
Germany was ravaged in 1689. Brussels was 
bombarded by the French in 1695 and nearly de- 
stroyed ; but after various treaties it was decided 
at the conferences leading to the Peace of Rys- 
wick. May 16, 1697, that the Belgic provinces 
should pass from Spanish ownership and become 
the property of Austria. Henceforth, for nearly a 
century, the Low Countries were known as the 
Austrian Netherlands. 

All these movements had a powerful influence 
on the colonization of America, and the enrich- 
ment, through the Huguenot emigrants, of the 
future United States of America. Such names as 
New Paltz and New Rochelle, in the Empire State, 
are witnesses of the movement that gave us richly 
of the best blood of France. 

By the Treaty of the Pyrenees, November 7, 
1659, France and Spain had made peace, it being 
agreed that the young king, Louis XIV of France, 
was to marry the Infanta Maria Theresa. Beside 
a half-million gold crowns, some land possessions, 



236 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

obtained by cutting off a strip of Belgic territory 
and adding it to France, completed her dowry; 
which, later, was used in robbing the land thus 
freely despoiled. In May, 1667, Louis, basing his 
claim on an old and obsolete Brabant Law, de- 
clared that he intended to take possession of what 
belonged to him in the Netherlands by right of 
his wife. He overran Belgic land with his armies 
and made plans to enter Holland as a marauder. 

Against this movement, the Triple Alliance of 
England, Holland, and Sweden was formed on 
January 23, 1668, which served an ultimatum 
upon Louis, according to which he was to take 
only a part of the territory he then held. By the 
Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, May 2, 1668, five Bel- 
gian towns and their territories were made part of 
France. One of them, Lille, or Lisle, still rich in 
Belgian art treasures, is familiar to us, because of 
its manufactures of lisle thread ; while Douai is 
renowned as the place of the translation of the 
New Testament, from the Vulgate Latin into 
English, in 1582, and of the whole Bible in 1609. 
Neither of these places was ever again within 
the Belgian frontiers. 

In Holland, William HI, a posthumous child, 
was born November 7, 1659, and John de Witt, 
who became virtual ruler of the country for seven 
years, took charge of the education of the boy. 
When grown to manhood, William devoted his 
life, whether as Stadholder of the Netherlands, or 



THE AUSTRIAi^f NETHERLANDS 237 

King of Great Britain, to maintaining tlie balance 
of power and foiling the schemes of Louis XIV. 

The threefold purpose of the Ryswick Treaty 
and of those made from 1698 to 1715, was, in the 
eyes of British statesmen, to secure for the Dutch 
an adequate barrier against French aggressions 
and the bigotry of her kings, to secure the Pro- 
testant succession in England, and the House of 
Hanover on the throne of Great Britain. This in- 
troduced the era of the Barrier Forts. Fifteen 
fortified places on the western frontier of Belgic 
land were named at first; but in 1713, Furnes, 
Knocke, Ypres, Menin, Tournay, Mons, Charleroi, 
the citadel at Ghent, and some other forts near 
Ghent and Bruges, were specified. They were to 
be garrisoned by troops from the Dutch Republic, 
while a brigade of Scotch troops, in the pay of 
the States - General, should serve in the Dutch 
army. 

But neither in war nor in peace were the Belgic 
people benefited by these proceedings, or, in the 
main, by any during what the native historians 
call their " century of misery." Austrian rulers 
did little or nothing in Belgic land, their perma- 
nent policy and chief purpose being to make only 
obedient Austrian subjects. In 1719, in Brussels, 
a native magistrate, Francis Ennessens, was put 
to death for upholding local privileges, as is pic- 
tured in the "color-blood" of a Belgian artist, on 
one of the noble canvases in the Eoyal Academy 



238 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

at Brussels. One is stirred in looking at this epi- 
sode in freedom's history. 

During all this time the Scheldt Eiver was kept 
closed by the Dutch. Foreign trade was paralyzed, 
and Antwerp shriveled to little more than an over- 
grown village, with grass-grown streets. In 1722, 
the Ostend Company was formed to trade by sea, 
but its projected commerce scarcely got beyond 
the paper stage, for the British Government, with 
Austrian approval, bought it out. This was done 
as the price of its approval to the Pragmatic 
Sanction, published May 25, 1725, by which, 
there being no male issue, the crown of Austria 
was transferred to the female line in Maria 
Theresa. After marrying Francis of Lorraine, in 
1736, this able woman became Empress on the 
death of her father in 1740, and Charles was 
crowned Emperor of Austria in 1745. 

British statecraft thus won prestige and the 
honors of success, while on Belgian soil many a 
brilliant and bloody battle was gained, which 
added such names as Ramillies, Malplaquet, Fon- 
tenoy, and Blenheim to the regimental flags of 
the British army. The fame of Marlborough was 
like that of Wellington in later time. Here also 
many an American loyalist officer, destined later 
in the Revolution to help in the struggle for 
American freedom, won his military laurels. 
Throughout, the native Walloon infantry main- 
tained its reputation for steadiness and valor, 



THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS 239 

while the " Irish Walloon," or soldier o£ fortune, 
became, in fact and fiction, as picturesque and in- 
teresting a figure as the Irish- American soldier of 
our Civil War and later times. 

In one of the campaigns, after the Battle of 
Fontenoy, the Duke of Cumberland was called 
back to Scotland, in 1745, to attend to " Bonnie 
Prince Charlie" and the uprising of the High- 
landers who favored the Stuarts and were opposed 
to the House of Hanover. After the butchery of 
CuUoden, in which the clans, as separate organiza- 
tions, and the final remnants of Scottish feudal- 
ism disappeared, the Scots crossed the Atlantic to 
settle chiefly in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, 
and, in time, to swell the ranks of Washington's 
army. They still sang the air and words of '' Bon- 
nie Prince Charlie," and the tune of " The White 
Cockade " was one of the first played by the Con- 
tinental fifers and drummers. In Great Britain 
the white of the Stuarts and Bourbons was op- 
posed to the black of the Hanoverian party. Many 
of the " sparkling Bourbonaires," who accom- 
panied Count Rochambeau to Connecticut and to 
Yorktown, as allies of the Americans, were veter- 
ans from Belgic battle-fields, and they loved to 
hear the Yankee fifers scream out this welcome 
tune. 

Much of the credit for the measure of pros- 
perity which now came upon the Belgic provinces 
must be given to Prince Charles of Lorraine, who 



240 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

devoted himself heart and soul to the development 
of the country. Among other enterprises, the canal 
from Ghent to Bruges, projected as early as 1379, 
was completed, and also one between Louvain and 
the Scheldt, thus adding materially to the internal 
communications of the country, and all the more 
necessary, since access to the sea had been cut oflf. 
To-day, steamers go direct from London to Brus- 
sels, utilizing these canals. 

During the Seven Years' War, which raged 
from 1755 to 1763, with the exception of one in- 
cursion of the Germans foreign armies were kept 
out of the Low Countries. In this respect the 
Belgic folks were even more fortunate than the 
American colonists, for this was the time of the 
French and Indian War, which settled the ques- 
tion as to which civilization, Latin or Germanic, 
was to dominate the American continent. In that 
war Washington, trained in the manual of arms by 
van Braam, a Dutch veteran of Continental wars, 
received his military experience; but Braddock, 
accustomed to fight on the flat plains of Flanders, 
made his great mistake. His brave soldiers had 
been drilled to fire in platoons, at a foe easily 
seen and within short range. In Virginia, not 
knowing the ways of Indians, and unaccustomed 
to forest warfare with invisible and individual 
foes, the British troops could do little among 
trees in the forest, where American riflemen were 
at home. The victory of Wolfe over Montcalm, 



THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS 241 

on the Heights of Abraham, was the concluding 
act of a century-long drama. 

Military operations on a grand scale went on 
in Germany, for the nations were in coalition to 
humble Prussia and the power of Frederick the 
Great, whose lieutenant. Baron von Steuben, later, 
at Valley Forge, changed a patriotic mob into a 
real army that was never thereafter beaten when 
opposed to an equal number. At Crefeld, where 
William Penn had gained so many German set- 
tlers for his " Holy Experiment " in Pennsylvania, 
there was a great battle in 1758. Prince Charles 
was obliged to be absent from the Belgic provinces 
during two years, but he was not very successful 
on the field of conflict. Relieved of command, he 
returned to civil duties by inaugurating a great 
reform, which greatly altered the system of land 
tenure in Belgic land. The power of the Church 
was also restrained and that of the civil law was 
reasserted. 

Charles bravely faced one very tough problem. 
There was great danger of the accumulation of 
land and wealth in the hands of ecclesiastics. He 
issued an order that limited the number of acres 
which a single cultivator might control. The tiller 
of Belgic soil was not, as in France and Germany, 
held to feudal obligations, but was a free agent. 
Nevertheless, too much of the land was owned in 
large areas by the monks and nuns. The aim of 
Charles was to weaken the power of the convents 



242 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

and monasteries, and secure frequent subdivision, 
so that the man who tilled the land could be its 
owner. The effect of this policy was to stimulate 
amazingly agriculture and to increase the number 
of small owners. On the other hand, the towns 
and the "dead cities "were left to languish for 
lack of industries and foreign commerce, and 
thousands of natives had to depend upon the bread 
of charity. 

No more pitiable era in Belgian literature is 
known than that of the eighteenth century. One 
can see in their art that the Belgian painters of 
this century " knew no thoroughly national idiom 
in literature," which " never walked abreast of 
the other muses." " Save in the plastic arts, civ- 
ilization in the southern Netherlands, during that 
period, displayed no national characteristics." 
Prince Charles made a noble effort to redeem the 
situation. He made it honorable for a gentleman 
to win fame with his pen as well as his sword. 
Under him the literary arts were lifted from the 
level of mere trades and made of high repute. He 
opened to students the famous library of the Dukes 
of Burgundy, the contents of which were a revel- 
ation to scholars. Its riches were great, including 
twenty-three thousand manuscripts, but it showed 
also how the Middle Ages travestied classic his- 
tory. Instead of fact and truth, it offered mostly 
fiction for fact and fancy for reality. 

Charles died in 1780, and was followed a few 



THE AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS 243 

months later by the Empress Maria Theresa. The 
Belgians spoke of Charles of Lorraine as " the 
good governor." They celebrated his jubilee by 
rearing a bronze statue, which now stands in the 
little garden in front of the Royal Library of 
Brussels. With the exception of the French inva- 
sion under Marshal Saxe, in 1745, the sixty-five 
years of this first period of Austrian rule had 
been one of unbroken peace and steady material 
progress. 



CHAPTER XXV 

" THE CROWNED ANARCHIST " : LlfeCE AND SPA 

Less fortunate for the Austrian Netherlands 
was the rule of " the crowned anarchist," Kaiser 
Joseph (1741-1790), brother of the unfortunate 
Marie Antoinette, and who at the death of Maria 
Theresa, in 1780, became ruler of the Austrian Em- 
pire. He had read the writings of those philoso- 
phers, true followers of Rabelais, out of which 
were to issue the lightnings of the French Revolu- 
tion. He had been flattered by the French ency- 
clopaedists. His ideal was that of " a wise despot- 
ism acting upon a definite system for the good of 
all." Yet he was without discernment to touch 
aright, or the patience to grapple with, the prob- 
lems of society or government, so as to solve them 
with mastery. Disdaining alike exact information 
and treaty obligations, he ordered the Barrier 
Forts to be at once dismantled. 

Holland being at that time in alliance with 
France, and at war with Great Britain on account 
of her recognition of the United States of Amer- 
ica and Governor de Graeff's salute to the Amer- 
ican flag at St. Eustatius, November 16, 1776, no 
resistance was made by the Dutch garrisons, who, 



THE CROWNED ANARCHIST 246 

being wholly unprepared to resist, marched out 
with honors. 

Such easy success so turned the Austrian Kai- 
ser's head that he demanded the complete sur- 
render of the frontier forts, and the cession of 
Maastrict, with the surrounding district. He then 
fitted out a small vessel which floated the Austrian 
flag, and sent her seaward down the Scheldt, ex- 
pecting that the Dutch would at once open the 
river ; but the gunners fired on the ship, compel- 
ling her to turn back. 

Thereupon the hot-headed Kaiser determined 
to declare war on Holland ; but, dissuaded from 
this, he tried diplomacy. The results of his nego- 
tiations in 1784 were the possession of the two 
forts which had fired on his flag and some com- 
pensation for his giving up Maastricht ; but the 
Scheldt remained closed. 

The weakness of Austria's hold on Belgic land 
lay in the readiness of the Vienna Court to sell 
out, or swap off the Low Countries for some ad- 
vantage that would increase Austrian power. Such 
a scheme was proposed by the Emperor Joseph, 
in 1785, but was blocked by British statecraft, as 
making both Austria and France too powerful in 
central Europe and thus disturbing the " balance 
of power." Moreover, it was suspected that Marie 
Antoinette was at the bottom of the scheme. 

Kaiser Joseph's plans for the sudden reforma- 
tion of the Church in Belgic land were equally f u- 



246 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

tile. His excellent purpose was to secure the tol- 
eration of all religions, as in Austria. Even the 
Pope declared in favor of his policy. In October, 
1786, he issued an edict for the creation of sem- 
inaries for the instruction of priests to carry out 
the new measures. But, hardened by their bitter 
experiences during the " Troubles," the mass of 
the people were stolid and uneducated for change, 
and the University of Louvain led in opposition. 
The ultra conservatives claimed that this, like 
other proposed innovations, — even to the abolition 
of the torture of witnesses in the courts, — was op- 
posed to their ancient constitution — tbe "Joyous 
Entry." Moreover, the Belgians suspected further 
Austrian designs against their freedom. Soon the 
Brabant Council refused, unless the obnoxious de- 
crees were recalled, to vote the annual subsidy. 
Two parties formed, the Royalists and the Patri- 
ots. A war of pamphlets followed. It was evident 
that the American precedent of successful resist- 
ance to revolution from without was a powerful 
influence. The people of insurgent temper began 
drilling. 

The answer of the Kaiser was an immediate in- 
crease of the Austrian garrisons and the planting 
of cannon around the hall of the Brabant Assem- 
bly, in Brussels, to overawe the legislators. In 
this era of cockades, two colors, the red and yel- 
low of the Brabant flag, were borne in opposition 
to the black of Austria. When, at Mons, the 



THE CROWNED ANARCHIST 247 

third estate in the Hainault Assembly voted oppo- 
sition to the Imperial orders, and thus inaugurated 
opposition to usurpation, the Kaiser, quite equal- 
ing James II, Sir Edmund Andros, or George III, 
of Great Britain, declared the Belgic Constitu- 
tion null and void and Hainault as conquered 
territory. 

Absolutism had precipitated the issue. The 
Kaiser had now to deal, not with diplomatists, 
but with a people. Crossing the frontier into Hol- 
land, two bodies of Belgian revolutionists organ- 
ized at Breda, under van der Noot and van Upen. 
Later, these bodies were united. They declared 
that Kaiser Joseph was no longer Duke of 
Brabant. 

Marching to Turnhout, on October 26, 1789, 
their military leader, van der Mersh, drove out 
the Austrian garrison. This success was the sig- 
nal for a general uprising. The Archduchess and 
her husband fled from Brussels December 11, 
and on the 18th, van der Noot entered the city in 
triumph. On January 11, 1790, the Brabant re- 
presentatives declared themselves sovereign and 
independent, under the name of the Belgian 
United States, to be ruled by a national congress. 
All this horrified the Kaiser, who died shortly 
after, exclaiming that Belgium had killed him. 

The new republic of the Belgian United States 
had many troubles and a short life. Besides many 
factional disorders within, it received no recog- 



248 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

nition from the outside. Prussia, Holland, and 
Great Britain arranged for restoration to Austria. 
After parleying, the new Kaiser, in 1789, dis- 
patched an Austrian army, which occupied Namur 
and Brussels and ended all armed resistance, 
while the popular leaders fled. Thus passed out 
of history the United States of Belgium. 

No story of Belgic land is complete without 
notice of the independent church-state, the epis- 
copal city of Li^ge and its Spa, near by. The 
former, long one of the busiest of cities and giv- 
ing its name to one of the richest of the Walloon 
provinces, was, for over eight centuries, from the 
time of Notger (972-1008), its most famous 
ruler, a principality governed by a line of prince- 
bishops. Its history is largely that of the strug- 
gles of the people for their rights and for freedom 
from the exactions of their rulers, who dictated 
both politics and religion. The people usually lost 
in these conflicts, because the German Emperors 
and the Dukes of Brabant or Burgundy were 
called in with their armies to crush the popular 
uprisings. This was the case, even after the citi- 
zens forced a charter from Bishop de la Marck, 
in 1316. Charles the Bold, as we have seen, and as 
Scott has told in his novel of " Quentin Durward," 
pillaged the city and razed its walls. 

Between the intrigues of the French King and 
the German Emperor, the town had its own civil 
wars between partisans, who were pro-French or 



THE CROWNED ANARCHIST 249 

pro-German. Under the Austrian rule local free- 
dom was extinguished after 1688, but there were 
intervals of peace and prosperity. The efforts of 
the prince-bishops, from this time until the French 
Eevolution, were devoted to maintaining neutral- 
ity and keeping hostile armies off their soil when 
the rest of Belgian soil was a blood-stained area. 
This neutrality made Spa, one of the towns in 
the hill country of Liege, with its healing waters 
and lovely scenery, the most fashionable resort in 
Europe. Here could be always found the froth, 
the dregs and, at times, the best society of the 
Continent. A mob of emperors, kings, dukes, 
lords, generals, and decayed gentility, youthful 
persons of shady character and worn-out old peo- 
ple with none, assembled here for amusement and 
health. Spa furnished the wits and joke-makers 
with a target for their shafts. Sheridan, in his 
"School for Scandal," says of "Cousin Ogle" 
that " her face resembles a tahle d'hote at Spa, 
where no two guests are of a nation." No one 
ever took Spa seriously. Busken Huet says, "The 
hydropathic establishment disappeared behind the 
gambling-room, the landscape behind the interna- 
tiondl tahle d'hbte. . . . The neutrality of the ter- 
ritory did the rest." One cynical writer, after 
describing in detail the Italian, French, British, 
Spanish, and other exotics blooming at this gar- 
den of pleasure, pictures " Russian princesses 
with their medical attendants and Palatine or 



250 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

Castilian ones with their private chaplains." He 
thus lumps the other oddities in his inventory : 
" Americans, burgomasters from all the neighbor- 
ing districts, jail-birds from every part of the 
world in plenty, also quack doctors of all kinds 
and of adventurers a nice assortment, abb^s from 
all countries, a few poor Irish priests who are in- 
structing the young Liegois, one or two English 
archbishops with their wives," with invalids, am- 
orous swains, and '' female waltzers, more or less 
handsome, more or less innocent, more or less 
coquettish, more or less modest and reputable." 

During the Austrian occupation other means, 
chiefly economic, were taken by Great Britain to 
head off the aggressive schemes of France and to 
secure the Netherlands against her and in sympa- 
thy with British statecraft. The treaty with Por- 
tugal, in 1703, was intended to favor British and 
Iberian trade at the expense of France, for it 
admitted into England Portuguese wines on easier 
terms than those from French and German vint- 
ages. This had, however, one curious and detri- 
mental effect, noticeable at Spa, but more partic- 
ularly throughout British society. 

In this era the comparison " drunk as a lord " 
was to the point. A deluge of port wine rolled 
into England and created a market for decanters 
and tumblers, the latter made round at the bot- 
tom so as not to spill or waste contents, — a neces- 
sary precaution. In London, port was bought by 



THE CROWNED ANARCHIST 251 

the hogshead, stored and bottled. In one year, 
1747, over two million gallons were imported. 
People went to dinner " chiefly on account of the 
port which followed," and "enjoyment only be- 
gan when . . . the solemn passage of the decan- 
ter had begun." Talk about "body," "bouquet," 
and "bee's-wing" — the gauzy film on the top of 
old port — was universal. To be found drunk 
under the table and to be carried off to bed by 
valets was reckoned the mark of a British gentle- 
man. 

Port wine helped grandly the cause of Ameri- 
can independence. The ministers of King George 
III managed the affairs relating to the trans- 
Atlantic colonies, at a time when " Get drunk on 
port, rather than be sober on claret " was a social 
maxim. The fuddling of brains and eagerness to 
dine and drink port led to frightful delays, mis- 
takes, and lapses of memory in the British War 
Office and on the part of King George's min- 
isters, and these blunders aided the Americans 
like an army of auxiliaries. Contemporary pic- 
tures of British and other officers at Spa, "re- 
tired for wounds which they never received " from 
lead or steel, show pitiful illustrations of this 
same spirit of the age. There were no Gladstones 
then, vigorous at eighty, but plenty of gouty 
statesmen, used up at fifty-five. Gout, red coats, 
and King George III seem almost synonymous in 
art and chronology. 



252 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

All this gayety, gambling, and amusement at 
Spa brought wealth to the Prince-Bishop of Liege. 
When in 1789 he ordered to be closed a house of 
pleasure which had been opened without his au- 
thorization, the right of the police was challenged. 
Some of the Spa people, being full of the revolu- 
tionary ideas imported from France, claimed that 
the exercise of such an act belonged only to the 
Three Estates. 

After the European Congress, Liege was joined 
to the kingdom of Belgium and ceased its sepa- 
rate existence. Spa, after having given its own 
name to watering-places in Europe, and to Ball- 
ston, Saratoga, and Clifton, N. Y., became more 
than ever a famous focus of pleasure and health- 
seeking, and, with increased attractions, more than 
held its own. To its baths and springs, its winter- 
gardens and its open-air summer theatre, aisles of 
grand trees, and tennis-courts, tens of thousands 
of visitors were attracted yearly. Its drainage and 
water supply, representing the last word in hygienic 
art, received the first prize at the Paris Exposition 
of 1900. Near Spa is the highest point in Belgic 
land. At the Gileppe Dam is to be seen the Bel- 
gian Lion, made of hydraulic cement, forty-five 
feet high and weighing twelve hundred and seventy- 
six pounds. 

After this statistical excursion, we have only 
to add that the revolt which arose from nothing 
nobler than the distribution of the proceeds of 



THE CROWNED ANARCHIST 253 

the gambling-tables at Spa, — a mere quarrel over 
spoil, — drove the Bishop to Treves and the Ger- 
man princes and counts invested in his quarrel. 
The people of Liege demanded a free national as- 
sembly and the rights of men and citizens, such 
as their brethren in France were supposed to en- 
joy. After some desultory operations of the Prus- 
sian military, the Liege uprising was put down by 
the active intervention of an Austrian army. 

During the war of the nations, which broke out 
in 1914, almost every one of the hotels in Spa 
was utilized during the entire campaign for the 
tens of thousands of German wounded, for which 
the place was so admirably fitted by nature and 
art. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

UNDER FRENCH MASTERS 

Although the Austrians were again in power 
in 1790, Leopold II (1747-1792) being Emperor, 
and the chief executive Metternich, father of a more 
famous son, and the Governor-General Maria 
Christine and her husband Albert seeming con- 
ciliatory in method and policy, the Belgic people 
were not enthusiastic at entering once more into 
the old house of bondage. Many anonymous writers 
of pamphlets discussed the question of the constitu- 
tion and what they supposed to be the best govern- 
ment for Belgium, which the Austrians imagined 
was wholly their question and not that of the na- 
tives; for they insisted that there was, properly 
speaking, " no Belgian nation; each of the ten pro- 
vinces was different." 

The people, wishing to enjoy their ancient con- 
stitution in their own way, easily saw through 
Metternich's scheme, which was to play off one 
Belgic party against another. Sullen and insurg- 
ent as they were, the situation became acute 
when the States refused to vote supplies to the 
Austrian Archduchess. 

When Kaiser Leopold died, on March 1, 1792, 
open war broke out between France and Austria. 



UNDER FRENCH MASTERS 255 

The first French invasion failed, for the alert Aus- 
trian army was forty thousand strong, eight of the 
regiments being Walloon. In the autumn ninety 
thousand Frenchmen, in three divisions, one of 
them commanded by General Lafayette, of Amer- 
ican fame, crossed the border and, at Jemappes, 
November 6, outnumbered and defeated the Aus- 
trians. , General Dumouriez entered Brussels, and 
occupied Antwerp, Namur, and LiSge. Europe 
wondered at a conscript army of republicans 
overcoming Austrian veterans, accustomed to be 
commanded by dukes and imperial generals. Later, 
because of their humane pleas on behalf of the 
French King and Queen, and of their protests 
against the excesses of the Revolutionaries, both 
Dumouriez and Lafayette were declared traitors 
to France. Nevertheless, despite the prayers of 
his wife and the intercession of Washington and 
the Government of the United States, Lafayette 
spent five years in the prisons of Prussia and 
Austria. The name of the latter country became, 
in America, a synonym for dungeons, despotism, 
and reaction, an impression which lasted until 
after Kossuth's time. 

The Belgians were quickly disappointed in 
that quality of French republicanism against 
which Lafayette had protested. Instead of altru- 
istic allies, they found common plunderers. The 
Gallic marauders regarded the property of " aris- 
tocrats" in Church or State as their booty. The 



256 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

guillotine was erected in the Grand Place in 
Brussels, to behead the victims of republican fury, 
while in the abbeys and chateaux, the alien rob- 
ber and iconoclast wrought foulest destruction 
in the name of " liberty, equality, and f rater- 
nity." 

When in 1793 Louis XVI was beheaded in 
France, Great Britain declared war. The Allies 
entered the Belgic provinces and defeated the 
French at Neerwinden. In April, 1794, at Brus* 
sels, the Austrian Emperor was solemnly inaug- 
urated Duke of Brabant, and apparently the bonds 
uniting Austria and the Belgians were forged 
anew. 

Yet the insincerity of the Austrians, who gave 
the Belgic people no assurance of respect for their 
ancient liberties, but rather kept the conquered 
country as a pawn in the broker's shop, helped 
the French. These, after defeating the Allies, en- 
tered Brussels on the 9th of July, and in the 
fourth year of the Republic formally united the 
Low Countries with France. For twenty years to 
come, the Belgians were to suffer bondage in the 
name of liberty, equality, and fraternity. A steady 
emigration of natives into Holland began and 
continued from 1780 to 1830. 

The era of the Austrian occupation, from 1713 
to 1796, may be called the period of the Apoch- 
rypha of Belgian history. During the two cen- 
turies, which include also the Spanish domination, 



UNDER FRENCH MASTERS 257 

except in art the Belgians spoke chiefly the lan- 
guage of despair. 

Into the same house of bondage the French 
planned to force the Dutch. During the severe 
winter of 1795 they crossed the icy highroads, 
furnished by the frozen rivers and canals, and 
established the Batavian Republic. On the whole 
they treated the Dutch with comparative mildness 
and honesty, as having less sympathy than the 
Belgians with aristocracy. The Belgic churches 
and abbeys were ruthlessly despoiled, and, added 
to the onerous taxes, was the compulsion to take 
the worthless French paper money at its full face 
value. 

Goaded to desperation, large numbers of natives 
took to the woods or hid in the swamps, becoming 
bandits and highwaymen. When the French or- 
dered a general conscription, in a country where 
the objection to a standing army was deeply 
rooted, the Peasant War of 1798 broke out. It 
was confined to the Campine, the region of moors 
and marshes ; and only villagers, farmers, and 
laborers took part in it. The valor of these pa- 
triots did not avail before the French infantry and 
the uprising was put down in blood. In recent 
years, in Hasselt (hazel bush), the city of Lim- 
burg, famous for its folklore and fetes and of 
Browning's poem, " How they [three horsemen] 
brought the good news from Ghent to Aix," a 
noble monument, in eloquent sculpture, has been 



258 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

reared to commemorate these rustic martyr-pa- 
triots. On a high pedestal adorned with life-sized 
figures of farmers in combat with the invaders, 
stands the leader, with standard and staff of the 
cross, blowing a horn to assemble his comrades. 

At Jemappes, in 1911, — at the time when 
hostilities between France and Germany over the 
Morocco affair were expected every moment, — a 
Gallic cock in bronze, instead of the Napoleonic 
eagle, was unveiled on the old battle-field. Neither 
French President nor Belgic King was present, 
however, and the oration of the French General 
Langlois was as " colorless as a royal speech from 
the throne." The Belgian masses supplied the 
only enthusiasm of the day. 

When Napoleon came into power, at the time 
of the Treaty of Lun^ville, February 9, 1801, by 
which all Germany west of the Rhine was ceded 
to France, he declared that France would never 
yield her rights in or renounce her possession of 
the Belgic provinces. He realized the naval im- 
portance of Antwerp, and, soon after assuming the 
title of First Consul, visited this city, spending 
three days. He declared that he would make it 
the metropolis of Europe. This touched the pride 
of the Belgians and their welcome of him was 
warm and his whole progress a triumph. Their 
enthusiasm was based on the belief that at last a 
ruler had appeared who honestly desired to pro- 
mote their true interests. His real purpose was 



UNDER FRENCH MASTERS 269 

to make Antwerp the base of ambitious war pro- 
jects. By 1813 he had spent on docks and fortifi- 
cations the sum of ten million dollars. 

Long is the story of hopes continually raised 
in the Belgian heart, but short and rapid appears 
their issue in despair. For a year, the river being 
open, Antwerp enjoyed a flush of prosperity, until 
the Scheldt was blockaded at its mouth by British 
cruisers, and commerce suddenly ceased. The 
lacemakers made a gorgeous veil for the Empress 
Josephine when she and her uncertain husband 
— a colossal blunderer when judging peoples — 
entered Brussels, escorted by twelve thousand 
veteran troops. But in 1804 France became an 
empire; and when, in 1810, Napoleon revisited 
Brussels, Josephine was a divorced woman and 
the fickle husband had a new wife from the Aus- 
trian Court. 

The Treaty of Luxembourg in 1806 meant the 
dismemberment of Belgian territory, for the old 
Walloon State of Stavelot, after nine hundred 
years of history, was dissolved. Later, in 1815, 
it was divided, part of it going to Prussia, while 
the towns, Stavelot and Malmedy, remained Bel- 
gic, with no change of language or religion. 

The popularity of the upstart emperor waned 
as suddenly as it had risen when he appointed 
Belgian bishops independently of the Pope, whom 
he treated as a virtual prisoner. In the palace at 
Laeken he planned the invasion of Russia, in 



260 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

which thousands of Belgian young men were 
sacrificed. After Napoleon had lost the Battle of 
Leipsic, in October, 1813, the Belgians were ready 
to revolt. "The Dutch took Holland" and the 
Prince of Orange returned from England. The 
European Congress at Chatillon, in March, 1814, 
offered Napoleon France with the boundaries of 
1791. This meant that he must evacuate Belgium. 
When the allied army entered Brussels and Bona- 
parte had been banished to Elba, Great Britain, 
thinking that the Napoleonic problem was solved, 
sent thousands of her veterans to America, expect- 
ing at New Orleans to end her war with the United 
States with a crushing victory. Her statesmen did 
not then know the virtues, either of cotton bales 
or of Old Hickory, or the shooting qualities of 
Jackson's riflemen. 

A shower of pamphlets fell in Belgium and it 
continued to rain printer's ink until the cannon 
boomed at Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna de- 
cided that the seventeen provinces of the Nether- 
lands were, after a separation of two hundred and 
thirty years, to form a single kingdom. William, 
Prince of Orange, at Amsterdam and Brussels, 
on March 17, 1815, caused himself to be proclaimed 
King of the Netherlands. This calmed public opinion 
in Belgium and gave satisfaction in Great Britain. 

The sudden return of Napoleon from Elba, 
however, upset all plans, reopened the problem, 
and made Belgium the first object of invasion by 



UNDER FRENCH MASTERS 261 

the French. Meanwhile Wellington's veterans 
were not at hand, but across the Atlantic. 

All these events, though but slightly noticed by 
historians, worked for the American cause at 
Ghent, where, for the purpose of framing a treaty 
of peace which should end the War of 1812 be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States, five 
of the ablest American statesmen, appointed by 
President Madison — Bayard, Gallatin, J. Q. 
Adams, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell — con- 
fronted three of Great Britain's weakest envoys, 
the young and unknown William Adams, with 
Henry Goulburn, and an elderly ex-admiral, 
Lord Gambler, after whom Gambler, Ohio, is 
named, as is also Kenyon College after his friend. 
Behind the British envoys was the angry war party 
in London, who wanted President Madison ban- 
ished and made a companion in exile of Bonaparte. 
It eventuated that the treaty signed was one of 
the most favorable ever made by the United 
States. The Battle of New Orleans, fought after 
the treaty of peace had been made, there being 
as yet no ocean telegraph, was fought in vain. 

On the continent three months passed before a 
shot was fired, for great armies on both sides had 
to be gathered and equipped. Bitterly disappointed 
in the Belgians, Napoleon found only three hun- 
dred and fifty under his eagles at Waterloo, while 
forty-five hundred were ranged with the Allies. 
He had hoped they would welcome him as a bene- 



262 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

factor, whereas the Belgians had deemed them- 
selves in a French prison for twenty years. Napo- 
leon did not understand peoples. 

At the Battle of Quatre Bras on June 16, the 
Netherlanders bore, without British support, the 
brunt of the fighting until 3.30 P.M., losing over 
one thousand men. Then they were skillfully with- 
drawn by Colonel Bylandt from the fire of the 
French artillery. On June 18, at the splendid charge 
of Ney's division of fifteen thousand men of the 
French cavalry, the Dutch and Belgians gave way 
after great loss, but re-formed and fought again. 

Thackeray, Baedeker, and others have revamped 
an old story, concocted twenty years after the 
battle, about the cowardice of the Belgian troops. 
Thackeray's funny character, Regulus van Cutsum, 
stands on the page of '^ Vanity Fair," most un- 
justly, as a typical Belgian. All contemporary 
accounts, both official and popular, show that the 
sons of the soil were no more cowards than the 
German troops under Sigel in our Civil War, or 
the Union soldiers at Gettysburg when ordered 
to retire behind the guns. 

In changing from French to Dutch masters the 
Belgians were to prove that they were to gain any 
advantage. A European congress at Vienna had 
ordered that two peoples, diiBfering largely in re- 
ligion, language, temperament, occupations, and 
experience, should form the Kingdom of the 
United Netherlands. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

UNDER A DUTCH KING 

William I, the Dutch King, looked upon the 
new domain, allotted to him by a congress of the 
Powers, as a conquered territory, while the Belgic 
people, devoted to their old constitution, agreed 
to union but not absorption. 

King William I was a typical Dutchman of the 
old school, rich in private virtues, but hardly fit- 
ted for civil government and difficult problems of 
statesmanship. He had been driven out of his 
home land by the French, had lived eighteen years 
in foreign lands, chiefly in barracks, had fought 
against Napoleon, and was of a military cast of 
mind. Would he be a master of hearts in recon- 
ciling two nations ? Heads shook at the idea. 

Belgium's population, as compared to that of 
Holland, was as seven to five, and concerning the 
Dutch Constitution of March 19, 1814, her people 
had not been consulted. Only one Belgian had a 
seat in the King's cabinet of ministers. His Ma- 
jesty nominated the members of the Upper Cham- 
ber, who sat for life. Of the one hundred and ten 
members in the Lower Chamber, half were from 
Holland and half from Belgium, despite the larger 
population of the latter. The great national 



264 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

debt of Holland was to be paid largely by those 
who had no part in its making. 

Of the prominent personalities, the Crown 
Prince and the future King William II was pop- 
ular with the Belgians. He made Brussels his 
residence and married Anna Paulowna, daughter 
of Czar Alexander of Russia, at St. Petersburg, 
February 1, 1816. Their son, born February 9, 
1817, became William III, father of Queen ^^% 
helmina. Another friend of the Belgians was Ho- 
gendorp, who, having been in America, was proud 
of his friendship with Washington, 

King William I, thoroughly imbued with the 
views of his Prussian ancestors and relatives of 
his wife, took his ideas of government from the 
barrack-room, rather than from men wiser than 
himself. His aim seemed to be to enforce his per- 
sonal will, to make Holland supreme and Belgium 
subordinate. He was not even a success with his 
own people. Attempting to reconstruct the demo- 
cratic system of the Reformed Dutch churches, on 
the model of the Anglican establishment, backing 
his decrees with infantry, cavalry, and artillery, he 
drove thousands of his Protestant subjects to re- 
sistance and secession from the State Church. The 
result was a change from subjects to citizens, who, 
in a great emigration of the most desirable settlers, 
helped build the commonwealths of Michigan, 
Iowa, and Nebraska. The King and Hogendorp 
quarreled, and in place of a helper, his Majesty 



UNDER A DUTCH KING 265 

had a bitter and unrelenting critic, whose statue 
to-day, erected by the Dutch Liberals, stands, not 
in the conservative Hague, but in Hogendorp 
Plein, in progressive Rotterdam. 

Hogendorp was succeeded by Falck, who hap- 
pily was a man of intellect and rich culture, a 
friend of literature and a patron of art. He revived 
the Royal Academy of Arts and Letters, arranged 
attractively the treasures of sculpture and paint- 
ing which had been recovered from Bonaparte's 
plunder gathered in Paris, deposited the famous 
Bargundian Library in the Brussels Museum, and 
encouraged the formation of art galleries in other 
cities. 

Yet Falck, too, did not please his sovereign, for 
he, like Hogendorp, felt that he must be the serv- 
ant of the nation rather than of one man in it, 
however eminent, considering that the government 
was representative, not despotic. The King re- 
moved Falck and appointed Streefkerk, a man 
after his own heart, a routine official and hard 
worker, who could obey without scruple. 

It is needless to detail the story of how two peo- 
ples, differing in interests and habits, in religion 
and language, drifted apart. Although Brussels 
was a brilliant city and The Hague was then but 
an overgrown village, the smaller place was made 
the national capital. With thirty Belgians and one 
hundred and thirty-nine Dutchmen in the princi- 
pal offices, with a great national debt contracted 



266 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

by Holland, which the Belgians could not under- 
stand why they should be called upon to pay, with 
the fleets from the Orient isles, with cargoes of 
pepper, spices, and coffee, unloading at Amsterdam 
and not at Antwerp, and the wealth of the Far East 
and colonies enriching the northern and not the 
southern Netherlands, even though Walloon and 
Flemish soldiers fought in Java, and with food 
very dear and living increasingly expensive, the 
masses in Belgic land became more and more dis- 
satisfied. When new taxes were laid on wheat, 
and the popular religion was interfered with, they 
showed openly their discontent. 

Time, tact, and patience would have won the 
Belgians, but neither the King nor his ministers 
would argue or explain, requiring from the an- 
nexed people only obedience. The King even tried 
to reconstruct education. His attempt to establish 
a department of philosophy at the University of 
Louvain was openly resisted by the prelates. He 
founded the University of Ghent in 1816, which 
was highly appreciated and the university still 
flourishes, with the Dutch arms unerased from 
their place of honor. 

Other good things were done by King William 
in behalf of the Belgic people, which have survived 
revolution and estrangement, and for which Bel- 
gians are to-day grateful. He encouraged and 
supported societies for the development of the re- 
sources of the southern Netherlands. He patron- 



UNDER A DUTCH KING 267 

ized many enterprises of industry, one of which, 
the great ironworks at Seraing, near Liege, founded 
by John Cockerill, an English mechanic, had, 
in its development, a story of romantic interest. 
King William invested largely of his private for- 
tune in the enterprises fostered by the Cockerill 
establishment, in which later the Waterloo Lion 
was cast and the Belgian railways equipped. Its 
activities, carried on by over fifteen thousand 
men, comprised the production of war material, 
cannon casting, bridge and railway equipment, 
and the building of steel ships at Hoboken on the 
Scheldt. The offices of the company were in the old 
palace of the Prince-Bishops of LiSge. In 1914 
the Germans utilized this large " plant." 

These facts, creditable to the heart of King 
William, explain why it was that, in the Univer- 
sity of Ghent, after the separation of the two 
countries in 1830, the arms of the Dutch Kingdom, 
with the motto of William of Orange, " I will 
maintain," wrought in bas-relief on the walls, were 
untouched and still remain. 

It may be safely said that an ex-soldier's inter- 
ferences with conscience and customs, irritating 
as these were, do not wholly account for the down- 
fall of Dutch rule in Belgic land. It was rather, 
as in the days of Alva, the financial measures of 
1821, touching as they did the pocket nerve of 
every householder in the country, that hastened 
the crisis. The tenth penny of the Duke of Alva 



268 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

precipitated the Dutch revolt against Spain in the 
sixteenth century. The same law of cause and 
effect in the ninteenth century began to work 
fresh disaster. 

In 1826 the influence of Belgic Liberals, led 
by Louis de Potter, was more than apparent. His 
articles in the newspapers taught the people that 
the Constitution of 1815 had been violated, and 
that the new laws ought to be withdrawn. At this, 
the King was furious. He ordered de Potter ar- 
rested, and in the trial of December, 1838, the 
journalist was sentenced to fine and imprisonment. 
This produced a tremendous popular excitement. 
The mob showed its feeling by smashing the 
windows of van Manen, the Minister of Justice. 
De Potter refused to be silenced. In prison, he 
sent out one of those little books which have 
set nations aflame. He appealed to Catholics and 
Liberals to unite in the national cause, and made 
scathing indictment of the royal policy. There- 
upon, the King ordered de Potter to be banished. 

At once, Count de Mdrode, head of the Catho- 
lic party, who had reared a tablet in honor of 
Anneessens of 1719, champion of Belgic liberties 
against the Austrians, circulated a petition that 
was soon black with one hundred thousand signa- 
tures. Catholics and Liberals, Walloons and Flem- 
ings, forgot their differences and became as one 
man. Then the King, even before he could under- 
stand the force of the movement, very unwisely 



UNDER A DUTCH KING 269 

and all unconscious that he was playing the role 
of a Berlaymont, denounced the agitator as "in- 
famous." The reply to this royal outburst of bad 
temper was a society formed of the leading peti- 
tioners called the "Association of the Infamous." 
Imitating their ancestors, they took as their 
motto, " Faithful, even to Infamy." Royalty thus 
furnished ammunition to the foes it had made. 
It was manifest to cool-headed outsiders that the 
southern Netherlanders were determined to be 
free. The Dutch were soon to discover that the 
Belgians were a nation. Like Napoleon and many 
a great man, victim to his egotism and delusions, 
King William could deal with men of routine, 
but not with a people. He could read the mind 
of individuals, but not that of a nation. 

It was not Dutchmen only that scouted the 
idea of Belgians uniting as one man. The first 
infirmity of the French mind regarding Belgic 
land was that it was a house divided against it- 
self and that Flemings and Walloons could never 
form a permanent union. 

Necessity being the mother of invention, and 
also of success, true Belgian journalism, so sorely 
needed, developed amazingly from the year 1827. 
Despite severe press laws and government pro- 
secutions, the power of the printed daily sheet 
grew steadily. In July, 1829, King William, after 
visiting Ghent, Liege, and other places, was mis- 
led by the warmth of his welcome outwardly 



270 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

given, and in October, thoroughly self-deceived, 
the King opened the last session of the States- 
General of the United Kingdom of the Nether- 
lands. To a petition of the Belgian people, bearing 
one hundred and fifty thousand signatures and 
declared to be backed by three hundred and sixty 
thousand heads of families, praying for redress, 
the only answer of royalty was — "I know my 
duty. I will maintain with all my power that Con- 
stitution to which I have taken oath." 

Action and reaction between the Belgian Lib- 
erals and the Dutch Government followed. The 
King withdrew the unpopular law on education, 
but the cession came too late ; and the climax of 
unwisdom was capped, on the 21st of June, in an 
order removing the High Court from Mechlin, 
where it had been since Burgundian days, and 
fixing it at The Hague. This was done when there 
were nearly four million Belgians to less than two 
and a half millions of the Dutch. In the army fewer 
than one fourth of the officers were Belgians. 

The Paris upheaval of July, 1830, had its effect 
in Brussels. On the 8th of August the Dutch 
King visited the city, but left, after four days, in 
alarm. A meeting of prominent Belgians was 
secretly held to discuss plans for a new govern- 
ment. The situation was so menacing that the 
celebration of the royal birthday on August 24 
was postponed. Yet no special military precau- 
tions were taken, though the garrison numbered 



UNDER A DUTCH KING 271 

only fourteen hundred and sixty-eight men, with- 
out artillery. 

On the night of the 25th of August, whether 
with or without intention, Auber's opera of '' Mu- 
sette de Portici," then new, was sung. People 
recalled that the Sicilian Vespers had been fol- 
lowed by the Bruges Matins. The same music 
had been sung, just before, in Paris, when Lafa- 
yette turned the tide in favor of the Liberal hour^ 
geoisie^ and gave his adherence to Louis Philippe, 
recognizing the supremacy of the nation in the 
new royal title, " King of the French, by the Grace 
of God and the Will of the People." 

In Auber's opera, the Neapolitan, Massaniello, 
who had four other names, calls upon his fellow 
countrymen to rise from their misery and slavery, 
and, moved by sacred love of country, to seek 
liberty from foreigners. When, in Brussels, the 
tenor had sung the passage in which the hero 
makes his appeal to revolt and hurls his anath- 
emas against the alien conquerors, the audience 
was seized with an irrepressible enthusiasm- Ris- 
ing in their seats they sang the air over and 
over again in chorus. Then, rushing from the 
house and into the square, they shouted, " Down 
with the Dutch ! Down with the Ministers ! " 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION OF 1830 

Very appropriately music was the occasion of 
an outbreak of a war for freedom, in which Brus- 
sels, like Paris, had its very effective barricades 
and became the centre of operations. Delegations 
of leading Belgians were sent to The Hague, ask- 
ing for separation and that the Prince of Orange, 
the King's son, be made viceroy ; but royalty kept 
silence. The King scorned proposals which, later, 
he would gladly have accepted. 

At Laeken, Belgian notables, wearing the Bra- 
bant colors and cockades, met the Prince of 
Orange, but no mutual satisfaction was gained. 
The next morning the Prince rode into the city 
with a small escort, and, leaping over the barri- 
cades, joined Colonel Bylandt's Dutch garrison at 
the Palace. 

Events moved rapidly in Belgium and slowly 
in Holland. Dutch troops advanced across the 
frontier and on the 23d of September attacked 
the city gates of Brussels. Planting sixteen guns 
in the inner space, they swept the Rue de Royale 
with ball and grape. Then Bylandt, at the head 
of a solid column of eighteen hundred men, charged 
down the street. Victory seemed easy, but at the 



THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION OF 1830 273 

barricades, o£E the main street, resistance was stub- 
born. A Dutch flanking force, sent eastward, lost 
its way and the men had to surrender. Neither 
cavalry nor infantry could make any impression 
on the barricades, which now rose on every side, 
while Belgian reinforcements from Namur, Tour- 
nay, and Liege poured in. The Dutch retreated 
to the park. The wooden-legged gunner, Charlier 
of Liege, serving his brass cannon, pointed at the 
park gate, with amazing rapidity and at short 
range made a record, now famous in song and 
story, that meant death to Dutchmen by the score. 
The King's troops were in Brussels and in the 
park, but how were they to get out? 

The Provisional Government of Belgium was 
formed on the 24th and took charge of affairs. 
Hard fighting was resumed on Sunday, the 25th, 
when four hundred Dutch and two hundred Bel- 
gians were killed. Cooped up without a supply of 
provisions or ammunition, and utterly unused to 
this style of fighting, the Dutch, after four days' 
war, with a loss of fifteen hundred, retreated dur- 
ing the night. In the square now called "The 
Place of the Martyrs," six hundred Belgians were 
buried, their other dead and the wounded making 
a total of many more. In this struggle the Wal- 
loons had thus far furnished the leaders and states- 
men, but now the Flemings joined them. The 
battle at the barricades has been grandly painted 
by Gaillart, the Belgian artist. 



274 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

King William called upon the Dutch people to 
rise in arms, but in Belgium the supreme activities 
were in the direction of political reconstruction. 
The Prince of Orange came to Antwerp October 
24, empowered by his father to be governor of 
the southern provinces, but this time he met with 
little sympathy. After attempts at a compromise, 
he left Antwerp, October 25, in despair. 

Hostilities reopened. The Belgians won in some 
skirmishes and when their volunteer soldiery en- 
tered the gates of Antwerp, the Dutch troops 
retired into the citadel, in which General Chass^ 
had now a garrison of five thousand men. On the 
27th of October, at 3 : 30 p.m., aided by eight 
Dutch men-of-war in the Scheldt, he began a 
bombardment of the city, which continued during 
seven hours, eighteen thousand shots being fired. 
The loss to Antwerp totaled two hundred lives 
and $2,500,000. 

This settled the question. A " river of fire and 
blood divides us forever from King William and 
his dynasty," was an individuars expression of 
Belgian feeling. On the 19th of November, the 
National Congress passed a resolution, declaring 
that " all members of the Orange-Nassau family 
are excluded in perpetuity from exercising any 
power in Belgium." 

Some sarcastic folks declared that the real 
motive of this unnecessary expenditure of powder 
and bombs was that which underlay the century- 



THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION OF 1830 275 

long closure of the Scheldt, — to ruin the city 
commercially for the pecuniary gain of the Dutch. 
In a word, " Rotterdam bombarded Antwerp." 
Like most wars, this one, at bottom, was for lucre. 

The Belgians had won their freedom and become 
a nation. A congress of two hundred delegates 
assembled and, after the labors involved in one 
hundred and fifty-six sittings, the issue in work 
was not only nobly creditable, but proved that 
natives were able to govern themselves far better 
than foreigners possibly could. Constitution, flag, 
and motto became law on February 7, 1831. In- 
dependence, representative government, and the 
exclusion of the Orange-Nassau family were the 
three principal features of this fundamental law 
of the old people and new nation. 

King William proved refractory and applied 
to the five Powers, authors of the Treaty of Vi- 
enna, and a conference was opened in London, 
November 4. 

Meanwhile the Belgians elected as their sover- 
eign prince Prince Leopold of Saxony, whose (le- 
gendary) descent was from the historic Wittekind. 
A man of fine education aud notable abilities, he 
accepted the responsibilities of service. Of the 
Reformed faith until the day of his death, he yet 
made an almost ideal ruler of a Catholic country. 
After he had read the Belgian Constitution he 
remarked that they who made it had left little for 
a king to do. On the 17th of July, 1831, he en- 



276 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

tered Brussels amid splendor and rejoicings. The 
throne was set up in front of the great cathedral 
of St. Gudule, and the coronation, conducted with 
solemn and joyful ceremonies, gave the Belgians 
a sense of unity and new courage. After forming 
a cabinet, Prince Leopold looked for his military 
resources to meet the impending storm of war 
from Holland. He found that instead of the army 
of sixty-eight thousand men planned on paper, 
there were but twenty-five thousand ready and 
available for service. Meanwhile the host of eighty 
thousand Dutch troops, in four divisions, with 
seventy-two guns, was marching across the Cam- 
pine, while the gunboats floating the tricolor were 
active in the Scheldt and cruising over fields now 
covered with water by the cutting of the dikes. 

In the "Ten Days' Campaign," the Belgian 
general, Niellon, at Turnhout on one day with his 
eight hundred men, kept twelve thousand Dutch 
troops at bay, and, reinforced next day, he, with 
eighteen hundred soldiers, held his own against 
twenty-five thousand of the enemy, and then re- 
treated. At Kermpt, two thousand Belgians drove 
fifteen thousand Hollanders, with many guns, 
from their position. 

This was the war in which the Flemish novel- 
ist, Henry Conscience, was a volunteer. He has 
told us of his experiences, and vivid indeed is the 
story of summer life in the Campine, amid the 
solitudes of which he spent his boyhood. Even 



THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION OF 1830 277 

more pathetic are his winter pictures of Belgium's 
frozen Siberia, of the snow, slush, ice, and frigid 
air of the desolate heaths. The patriots had to 
sleep with slight shelter or none. Sometimes the 
ice had to be chopped from their blouses. In this 
typical workingman's garment the soldiers fought, 
and colonels wore it as their uniform, — the gold 
shoulder-straps and badges of rank and office 
harmonizing finely with the blue. Proudly the 
patriots of 1830 wore the blouse. Exultingly do 
their children cherish it. Gladly have painters 
represented their heroes in it. 

Yet few reputations were made during this 
struggle, which from one side seemed a civil war 
and from the other a patriotic resistance of invad- 
ing foreigners. Slight honor belongs to the Bel- 
gian commanders, Neillon being the only real 
general. Despite his corrupt and improvident 
ministers of war, King Leopold kept heart and 
persevered. The Assembly voted seventy-two mil- 
lion francs and a new levy of twenty-five thous- 
and men. The Belgian Lion and motto were seen 
on the regimental flags and on the colors of gar- 
risons, meaning defiance to the end. 

On the Dutch side little glory was won, but one 
name, beside that of General Chass^, rises im- 
mortal. Lieutenant van Speyk, an alumnus of the 
Amsterdam Orphan Asylum, in command of the 
Dutch gunboat and thirty-one men when it 
grounded, February 5, 1831, on the river bank, 



278 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

saw his ship surrounded by boatloads of Belgians 
coming to capture his men and his craft. Unable 
to make successful resistance to overwhelming 
numbers, he waited until his enemies were on 
board, in exultation over an imaginary victory. 
Then, rushing to the powder magazine, van Speyk 
fired his pistol. In the explosion, ten men were 
killed and twenty-one wounded, only two of the 
crew escaping. To-day, in the parlor of the orphan 
asylum, on the Kalvar Straat, in Amsterdam, the 
sword and relics of this brave man are reverently 
cherished, and at Egmont-aan-Zee in his honor 
rises an obelisk crowned with a bronze lion. When 
the United States of America, in 1889, celebrated 
their centennial of the Constitution, it was the 
marines and sailors of the Dutch frigate van 
Speyk, who, marching down Broadway, attracted 
so much attention, because so totally different, in 
build and face, from the Dutchmen of Irving's 
literary legend. 

In accordance with the terms of the treaty be- 
tween the British and French, Belgium now called 
on France for aid, and a French army of fifty 
thousand infantry, twelve thousand cavalry, and 
eight thousand artillery and engineers, entered 
the Low Countries, through Tournay, to dislodge 
General Chass^, who had forty-five hundred men 
in the citadel at Antwerp, much of it still retain- 
ing Alva's tough masonry of 1567, and the bat- 
teries their Spanish names. The initial trenches 



THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION OF 1830 279 

were completed November 29, and the next day 
the first gun opened the storm of fire. On the 
14th of December the lunette of St. Lawrence 
was captured. On the 23d, the Toledo bastion 
was breached. Sixty-five thousand rounds had 
been fired. All was now ready for the assault, 
when the white flag was hung out, and the next 
day the Dutch laid down their arms and marched 
as prisoners to France. The Dutch loss was five 
hundred and sixty-two men. On the French side, 
seventeen hundred and thirty-one men were killed, 
wounded, or invalided. Colonel Coopman, in com- 
mand of the Dutch fleet on the Scheldt, rather 
than surrender to the French, who now com- 
manded forts that could sink his craft, set fire to 
five and scuttled seven of his ships. Most of his 
sailors escaped, though he himself was made pris- 
oner. General Chass^, praised as a hero, received 
the thanks of King William. Despite this French- 
Belgian success, the Scheldt was not yet open. 
Over the two great fortresses at Lille and Lief- 
kenshoek on the right bank commanding the river, 
the Dutch flag floated until 1839. At Tournay, 
a memorial column was reared in honor of this 
French intervention. 

Traditional Dutch obstinacy was illustrated by 
King William, who still held out. While he 
sulked, unreasonable and irreconcilable, the Bel- 
gians continued to progress in unity and prosper- 
ity. On the 9th of August, 1832, at Compi^gne, 



280 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

France, Prince Leopold was married to Louise, 
daughter of " the Bourgeois King," Louis Philippe. 

The written protest of the Belgian envoys to 
the London Conference, made September 28, 
1833, closed the first period of the new kingdom's 
foreign affairs, and during the next five years 
there were few incidents that vitally concerned 
the two nations that had formerly been one. At 
last the iron will of King William relaxed, and 
on the 24th of March, 1838, he accepted the 
twenty-four articles agreed upon in 1831 by the 
Powers. The final treaty in London signed by 
all the Powers, April 18, 1839, guaranteed Bel- 
gium's perpetual neutrality. This document was 
the "scrap of paper " of 1914. To the sorrow of 
the patriots, who for nine years had sacrificed for 
their country, Belgium, Limburg was attached to 
Holland. 

The long struggle only proved the absurdity of 
war as a method of deciding international dis- 
putes, in which the personal element was so visible 
and prominent. At bottom the whole affair was a 
squabble raised by a stubborn old aristocrat, who 
wanted his ministers to be slaves of the royal will. 
In the early stages, at least, of the dispute, the 
affair could easily have been settled without the 
loss of blood or treasure. It seems the height of 
absurdity that great nations should be troubled 
with the personal quarrels of their chief servants. 
Their bitter experiences made the Dutch welcome, 



THE NATIONAL REVOLUTION OF 1830 281 

in the next century, the Hague Conferences and 
Court of Arbitration. 

Belgium's vital foreign problem being solved, 
her energies were now devoted to interior reor- 
ganization. Now began that long struggle between 
the Clericals and Liberals that has furnished, 
since 1830, the core of Belgian politics. The first 
battle was over the control of the universities, for 
the inveterate question of the priests was, — Who 
shall be master of the mind and conscience of the 
nation? Unless isolated from the influences that 
make the dreaded Liberals and the kind of peo- 
ple that want public schools free from priests and 
parsons, sects and church rulers, as in America, 
for example, there was no hope of maintaining the 
power of the hierarchy. After the problem of 
the university came that of elementary education. 
The long battle of words in discussion lasted many 
months. Then the primary education law, of Sep- 
tember 23, 1842, in substance the law of the land 
until 1911, was promulgated. 

Gradually, though very slowly, the civilized na- 
tions are following the example of the United 
States in the absolute separation of Church and 
State. 

In the perspective of eighty years, we can see 
that whatever yet remains for difference and ad- 
justment between them, the Dutch and Belgians 
now respect each other as genuinely as do Federal 
and Confederate veterans, who, on the old battle- 



282 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

fields, have long since clasped hands. At the 
inauguration of Queen Wilhelmina in 1898, the 
obelisk reared in Amsterdam in memory of the 
fallen Dutch in Belgium in 1830, was hidden in 
the "reconciliation of flowers." In Belgium this 
oblivion of bitterness is all the more true, with 
emphasis, not only because of Kogier's song, " The 
New Brabanter," but was notable in 1911, when 
the menace of France and Germany against the 
neutrality of either country on account of the 
Moroccan affair threatened to take a form of 
reality inimical to both countries. Then the sov- 
ereigns, Wilhelmina and Albert, were as glad to 
meet and exchange ideas for mutual benefit as 
are the men of the Blue and the Gray in America 
to reaffirm ancient friendships, which are more 
powerful, in the long run, than temporary causes 
of estrangement. 

In our chapter on " Brave Little Belgium," we 
shall see how again, in 1914, as in 1567, Holland 
opened her arms to welcome the Belgian refugees 
driven from home by war. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

KECONSTRUCTION OF THE BELGIAN STATE 

The new king, Leopold I, was at first disgusted 
at the parochial nature of local politics. He was 
not in love with either the theory or the practice 
of government by parties, and the incessant 
squabbles of the Clericals and Liberals irritated 
him. Nevertheless the constitutional system of Bel- 
gium was far in advance of the general status 
in Europe, and when the era of unionist minis- 
tries was over, cabinets containing many elements 
came into being. Then Belgium, with the elec- 
torate vastly enlarged, was enabled to resist and 
weather the great storm of revolution in Europe 
which made the year 1848 so memorable in history. 
From Paris the " Citizen King " fled, and most of 
the continental nations were profoundly perturbed. 
From Hungary, Kossuth, invited by President 
Zachary Taylor, fled to America, coming in the 
United States warship Mississippi, only to re- 
ceive from President Millard Fillmore the dis- 
appointing announcement that the policy of non- 
interference in the affairs of foreign nations, 
outlined by Washington, would be rigidly up- 
held. 

The Belgians drove back from their soil several 



284 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

bodies of armed French invaders who attempted 
to violate her neutrality, even the locomotive 
being used for the sudden transport of these fili- 
busters. During the tragic and troubled era, re- 
maining undisturbed, to be a bulwark of defense 
to Holland also, Belgium emerged in strength and 
prosperity, rendering by her stability vast services 
to the cause of constitutional liberty in Europe. 
The demonstration of the value of a written 
constitution as a safety-brake was in this case 
notable. Throughout all the debates the examples 
of England and the United States of America 
were constantly held up as to be followed for 
inspiration. 

The system of party politics steadily developed, 
and with increase of the electorate the elections 
became more and more representative of principles 
and not merely indices of the personal foUowings 
of leaders. Even when, in 1851, Napoleon III 
made his Coup d'Etat in Paris, the example of 
the French had slight allurement. Despite the 
taunt that " Belgium was a nest of demagogues," 
it was clear that the new state had the freest 
constitution in continental Europe. Its very free- 
dom, however, rendered its provisions of hospit- 
ality to foreigners liable to abuse, in that revo- 
lutionists from other countries made Belgium too 
often the headquarters of their pernicious act- 
ivities, in the licentiousness of journalism, and 
the plots of assassins. 



RECONSTRUCTION OF BELGIAN STATE 285 

Preeminent in measures of reform and advance- 
ment stood the great Liberal statesman, Charles 
Latour Rogier (1800-1883), one of whose mon- 
uments stands in Brussels, while another, recently 
erected at Liege, is one of the noblest triumphs 
of modern art. Under his leadership the number 
of voters was doubled. Indeed, the story of modern 
Belgium may almost be told in the narrative of 
his life. Left an orphan by the death of his father, 
who perished in the Russian campaign of Napo- 
leon, Rogier came to Liege and started a news- 
paper which attacked the Dutch administration. 
In 1830, under a banner inscribed, " Win or die 
for Brussels," he led a hundred and fifty of his 
fellow citizens to the capital, took part in the 
fighting and civil reconstruction, and was made 
president of the administrative commission. He 
served in the National Congress, fought a duel, 
and was wounded. He carried to success the law 
establishing a national system of railways. He 
served repeatedly in cabinets and as Premier, 
devoting his untiring energies to Belgium's in- 
dustrial development, and to limiting the power 
of the Clericals. To secure reconciliation with 
Holland, in 1860, he wrote a famous poem, " La 
Nouvelle Braban^onne." In 1860, as Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, he achieved the greatest of Bel- 
gian diplomatic triumphs, the opening of the 
Scheldt River to commerce, which in a few years 
made Antwerp the second seaport on the Conti- 



286 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

nent. When the Belgians celebrated the fiftieth 
anniversary of their independence, the popular 
ovations accorded Rogier showed him to be the 
idol of all classes. In 1910, above the Brabant 
Lion, and beside the Maid of Belgic Land, with 
all the symbols of honor and veneration of a grate- 
ful people, the figure of Rogier was set in endur- 
ing bronze in the city of Liege. To-day one may 
behold what his statesmanship accomplished for 
the nation. No country in Europe excels Belgium 
in the cheapness and convenience of travel by 
railways, which he helped to inaugurate. In Ant- 
werp, the allegory in marble of the enrichment 
of the city and land, through the wealth-giving 
river, stands in one of the principal thoroughfares, 
and in the New York Metropolitan Museum of 
Art the naval pageant, which inaugurated the 
navigation of the Scheldt in 1863, is shown on a 
brilliant canvas by PaulJean Clays, Happily for 
the enrichment of life and the sweetening of toil, 
the first smile of free nation was art. Like a gar- 
den of bright flowers, Belgian painters made the 
canvas bloom as they told their country's story 
and its episodes in their paintings. 

Rogier's younger colleague, Hubert Joseph 
Walther Frere-Orban, born in 1812, who carried 
on the good work of his predecessor, was also a 
man of Liege. His motto, as against the Clericals, 
was, "The temporal power must displace and 
absorb the spiritual.'' As Minister of Public 



RECONSTRUCTION OF BELGIAN STATE 287 

Works, and of Foreign Affairs, and throughout all 
the vicissitudes of fortune and public favor, he 
was ever in the van of progress, being active until 
1894. Several others of the eminent statesmen of 
free and sovereign Belgium have been commemo- 
rated in statues. 

Among the great problems pressing for solu- 
tion, in a country that had been for centuries 
militarily defenseless, was the fortification of the 
frontiers and of Antwerp, the chief seaport, accord- 
ing to modern theory and practice. This has been 
so far accomplished that, both in the Franco-Prus- 
sian War of 1870, when tens of thousands of the 
wounded of both combatants were nursed on her 
soil, and in the disputes of France and Germany 
over Morocco, in 1911, enforcement of neutrality 
and of the rights of a sovereign state were pos- 
sible. When Belgium was a land of mercy and 
healing for the wounded of both warring nations 
in 1870, many of the old castles and " cloth halls '* 
served as hospitals. The visit of Queen Wilhel- 
mina of the Netherlands to the Court of Brussels 
in the autumn of 1911 was interpreted to mean a 
practical union of Belgium and the Netherlands 
for the defense of their menaced frontiers. 

With the increase of population, which has 
made Belgium the most densely inhabited coun- 
try in Europe, the minds of statesmen were di- 
rected to making provision for material comfort 
and prosperity at home, and to discovering fresh 



288 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

outlets for the national energies and the surplus 
population. King Leopold I had early foreseen 
that the markets in Europe were drying up and 
that new avenues of trade and expansion must be 
found elsewhere. The aptitude of Belgians for 
colonization became the theme of study and writ- 
ing. The door of colonial activity in the East 
Indies, where many Belgians had gone, having 
been closed in 1830, investigations were made 
concerning Mexico, Texas, the Philippines, Gua- 
temala, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, as 
fields of enterprise, during the period from 1830 
to 1870. The treaties with China, Japan, and 
other nations of Asia, and the Duke of Brabant's 
tour in the Far East in 1858, awakened public 
attention still further. The purchase of Formosa 
or of the Philippines was considered. In February, 
1860, the Crown Prince, later, as King, the private 
owner of the Congo State in Africa, made a notable 
speech in the Senate, which " constituted the true 
starting-point of Belgium's colonial policy." After 
a later address in 1861, his utterance " I claim 
for Belgium a fair share of the sea" became a 
watchword and point of advance. 

Yet the old proverb, " A home-keeping lad has 
ever homely wits," as applicable to nations as to 
individuals, must not be forgotten here. The Bel- 
gians had so long been under foreign masters that 
their caution in inaugurating so novel a scheme 
as colonial enterprise verged upon timidity. As 



RECONSTRUCTION OF BELGIAN STATE 289 

early as 1844 the King wrote, " We have to create 
ahnost everything here, because private enterprise 
does next to nothing at all." This fact explains 
why the African Congo State was so long the pri- 
vate property of King Leopold. It had at first to 
be so, for the Belgic sovereign was the original 
mover in the enterprise and long the chief one 
interested. 

The intermarriages between the royal family of 
Belgium and Austria, as of Charlotte, born June 
7, 1840, daughter of King Leopold I, who wedded, 
in July, 1857, the Archduke Maximilian of Aus- 
tria, renewed the old bonds of friendship. When 
Napoleon III sent an army into the interior of 
Mexico, to establish there a throne and a Euro- 
pean dynasty, in defiance of the Monroe Doctrine, 
during the time of our Civil War, the crown was 
offered to and accepted by Maximilian, and in 
May, 1864, the Emperor and the Empress Char- 
lotte, of Belgium, arrived at Vera Cruz. The suc- 
cess of the Union arms in the United States was 
not anticipated in Europe. 

The Austro-Belgian military contingent for 
Mexico numbered ten thousand, of which Wal- 
loons and Flemings constituted one fifth. In two 
bodies, October 15, 1864, and January 15, 1865, 
the soldiers sailed away in high hopes, to form 
the nucleus of a new imperial army in Mexico. 
Yet before they or Maximilian and Charlotte ar- 
rived, the Confess of the United States had re- 



290 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

solved that no monarchy on American soil would 
receive recognition. This meant that General 
Grant's veterans might soon be in Mexico to en- 
force the Monroe Doctrine. 

In the two battles fought by Belgians on Mexi- 
can soil, the men acquitted themselves bravely. 
In one case five hundred of the Legion surrend- 
ered to three thousand Mexicans, only after their 
last cartridge had been shot away. In another, a 
body of thirty-five hundred natives was defeated 
by the Belgians. Marshal Bazaine thanked the 
Legion on its departure for home in January, 
1867. Mr. Seward's representations to Napoleon 
were too much for the French adventurer, and he 
withdrew his troops. Maximilian was shot by the 
Mexicans on June 19, 1867. The grief -stricken 
Charlotte went insane. In the mean time, Decem- 
ber 10, 1865, King Leopold had died. At Oude- 
narde and at Beverloo, monuments to the fallen 
brave recall the valor of the Belgian heroes in 
Mexico and the folly of Napoleon III. 

The first King of the Belgians (1790-1865) left 
a noble record of unselfish devotion and amazing 
diligence. He was rightly called the founder of a 
nation, a constitution, and a dynasty. Having lived 
and died in the Reformed faith, he was buried ac- 
cording to its simple forms. Though he had never 
changed his convictions or form of worship, he 
had served well and acceptably a Roman Catholic 
country, and had allowed his children to be brought 



RECONSTRUCTION OF BELGIAN STATE 291 

up in the mediaeval ritual and dogma. The Min- 
istry announced that " Belgium has lost the king 
who shared her fortunes with unalterable devotion 
during the whole course of a long, peaceful, and 
glorious reign." His son, Leopold II, succeeded his 
father, reigning until 1909. In Windsor Chapel, 
Queen Victoria erected to her uncle's memory a 
monument which bore an inscription, " Who held 
the place of a father in her affections." 



/ 



CHAPTER XXX 

GREATER BELGIUM: THE CONGO STATE 

All the world went to Brussels in 1910. The 
Belgians, having enjoyed eighty years of freedom, 
determined to eclipse all previous national celebra- 
tions, such as the twenty -fifth in 1855 and the fifti- 
eth in 1880, not only in the splendor of their pa- 
geants and processions, but also by inviting the 
nations to a great international and universal ex- 
hibition of art and industry in their national cap- 
ital. Antwerp in 1885, Brussels in 1897, and Liege 
in 1907 had held similar expositions on a smaller 
scale, but the halls and pavilions for 1910 were 
erected on a space of two hundred acres. Most of 
the governments of the civilized world responded 
with exhibits. Despite a destructive fire during the 
progress of the exposition, millions of people en- 
joyed its attractions. Besides the wonderful dis- 
play of Belgian products, the Congo Museum, the 
art and architecture of the brilliant city were re- 
velations of Belgium's prosperity and the almost 
incredible advance made in fourscore years. From 
the rude monolith at Hollain and the dolmen at 
We vis, to the imposing architecture of the Palais du 
Justice, fit monument of Belgium's freedom, what 
an advance in civilization ! What climates and 



GREATER BELGIUM: THE CONGO STATE 293 

revolutions of belief, aims, and ambitions in the 
long perspective of twenty centuries ! 

To the thoughtful student the pageant of real 
history outrivaled all attempts at visible reproduc- 
tion to the eye, however impressive. Since 1830 
the population had doubled and the volume of 
trade increased eighteen fold. Belgium's commerce, 
in proportion to the numbers of her people, was 
double that of France or Germany, seven times 
that of Italy, twelve times that of Russia, four 
times that of the United States, and exceeded that 
of Great Britain. Belgium's financial system was 
so stable that the Japanese after ten years' trial 
of American methods made the Bank of Belgium 
her model, with the happiest results. Within that 
same period of time new seaports, such as Zee- 
brugge, had been created, and Antwerp had be- 
come one of the greatest ports of entry in the 
world. Brussels, from being a provincial town, is 
now known as one of the intellectual capitals of 
Europe. Since 1830 over one hundred thousand 
separate works in Flemish, Walloon, or French, 
had been published, and the names of Belgian au- 
thors, including Maeterlinck, were known all over 
the world. Space does not permit us to treat of 
the Flemish movement in literature inaugurated 
by Henry Conscience. 

In continuance of seven centuries of the fine arts 
and an inextinguishable love of beauty, the Bel- 
gian men and women of genius and taste have 



294 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

opened a new era of painting, sculpture, and ar- 
chitecture. By generous and successful restorations, 
the authorities have harmoniously joined to modern 
freshness and enterprise their mediaeval triumphs 
and monuments which the world loves still to 
enjoy. Until the war of 1914, the artistic wealth 
of Belgium was beyond human estimation, form- 
ing a magnet to attract lovers of beauty to a land 
of almost ideal material comforts for the traveler. 

As of old, Belgian art is famed for its '* color- 
blood," its expression of health and robustness, its 
keen sense and appreciation of the material, and 
its instinct of animality ; in a word, it is rich in 
life and light. 

Glancing at the political history of eighty years 
of freedom, we note that the " father of his coun- 
try," Leopold I, died in 1865. By the Salic law, 
only males inherit the crown of Belgium. The 
Duke of Brabant, who succeeded under the name 
of Leopold II, was born April 9, 1835, and mar- 
ried, in 1853, Marie-Henriette, Archduchess of 
Austria. Of this union three daughters and one 
son were born. Under the reign of Leopold II, 
the Liberal party held power from 1857 until 
1870, and the Catholics, in the main, from 1870 
to 1910, when a Liberal reaction took place. The 
revision of the Constitution in 1883 provided for 
manhood suffrage. Foreign as well as native crit- 
ics declare that Belgian jurisprudence is equal to 
any in the world in securing the greatest good to 



GREATER BELGIUM: THE CONGO STATE 295 

the greatest number. The most striking monument 
of Belgium's triumphs in law and history is the 
Palace of Justice in Brussels, inaugurated in the 
year of jubilee, 1883. It is the largest architec- 
tural work of the nineteenth century, and one of 
the most beautiful of modern buildings. 

Belgium is small only in territory, having an 
area of but 11,373 square miles, with a population 
of about eight millions, or nearly six hundred to 
the square mile, but the Belgian Congo State in 
Africa is nearly eighty times larger. 

Within the memory of living men the interior 
of the Dark Continent was a blank. To-day the 
flag of the Congo State, with its golden star on a 
blue ground, floats over a hive of industry in a 
fruitful garden. Dotted with churches, hospitals, 
trading-stations, and promising new settlements, 
threaded with wagon-roads and highways of steel, 
with steamers plying upon its rivers, and the pro- 
duce of its forests and plantations enriching both 
the natives, colonists, and the rest of the world, 
the transformation is as marvelous as a fairy tale. 
The most striking index of Africa's progress to 
be found in Europe is seen in the Congo Museum 
in Brussels. 

Following the explorations of Burton, Speke, 
and Livingstone, which revealed the sources of 
the Nile and the Congo in the great fresh-water 
lakes of Central Africa, went Stanley, who tra- 
versed the Dark Continent from sea to sea, reach- 



296 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

ing the mouth of Africa's majestic river on March 
12, 1877, after a journey of nine hundred and 
ninety-nine days. 

King Leopold had founded in 1876 the Inter- 
national African Association and sent Belgian 
officers to establish the first stations at Lake Tan- 
ganika. After Stanley's discoveries, the King or- 
ganized the International Association of the Upper 
Congo and sent exploring parties up the mighty 
river and into its numerous affluents. The United 
States of America was the first great Power to 
recognize this association as a properly constituted 
state. This work of civilization made such rapid 
progress that at the Congress of Berlin, in 1885, 
the Powers recognized the Congo as an independ- 
ent state under the sovereignty of King Leopold. 
The Belgic Anti-Slavery Society, under Cardinal 
Lavigerie, Primate of Africa (1825-1892), was 
founded to repress the slave trade, the "heart 
disease of Africa." It was even hoped that a fra- 
ternity of armed laymen would restore the fertil- 
ity of the Sahara. This did not come to pass, but 
gradually the slave-hunters were driven out of the 
Congo Free State — a notable triumph of civili- 
zation. In the founding of new stations and in the 
military campaigns, by which the Arab strong- 
holds were captured and slave-hunting and can- 
nibalism improved off the face of the earth. Baron 
Francis Dhanis (1861-1909) took the leading 
part. At Blankenberghe, a noble monument has 



GREATER BELGIUM: THE CONGO STATE 297 

been reared to two of the victims of war, Sergeant 
de Bruyne and his comrade, whose bleached 
skulls, long after their death, were found exposed 
on the palisades of a village of black savages. 

No less brave and enterprising were the Chris- 
tian missionaries, men and women, who, leaving 
their Belgian homes, went into the wilderness to 
rear schools, hospitals, and churches, and to help 
in forming a free, prosperous, and Christian na- 
tion. After these followed colonists, who were 
often less humane than eager in the quest of ivory, 
caoutchouc or rubber, coffee, and the raw mate- 
rial, which, turned into gold, has been the basis 
of many Belgian fortunes. Too many supposed 
that gain was godliness, and in the business of 
getting rich too fast, the King himself led. The 
abuses of bad government, chiefly in the form of 
cruelty to the natives, became so great that the 
civilized world cried "shame" and the British 
Parliament made protest. The situation called for 
action. 

The Congo Free State, bounded by " the white 
man's Africa," as partitioned among Portuguese, 
Germans, French, and British, has an area of over 
nine hundred thousand square miles with a popu- 
lation of possibly thirty millions. It was brought 
into being wholly through the ambition and force 
of one man, King Leopold. At first the Belgians 
insisted that he alone should be the responsible 
owner and manager. Within ten years King Leo- 



298 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

pold spent six millions of dollars on his African 
estate, but later he more than recouped his outlay 
and became very rich. The Congo Free State was 
thus at first a monopolist trading concern, in 
which abuses soon grew intolerable. 

This led to a movement in Belgium for direct 
annexation. After prolonged discussion and nego- 
tiations the Congo Free State ceased on Novem- 
ber 14, 1908, and the Belgian Congo, as a colony 
of the mother country, began its life. The first 
foreign Power to recognize the transfer was Ger- 
many, in January, 1909. The old system of abso- 
lute monarchy, with forced labor, was changed to 
a colonial system of thirteen districts and one 
province, each governed by a commissary, the 
power of legislation being vested in the Belgian 
Parliament. 

By the Berlin act missionaries of all names and 
creeds have perfect freedom of action and are the 
chief educators of the natives, though the state 
has established agricultural and technical schools. 
Provision is made for orphans, foundlings, aban- 
doned or neglected children, and those rescued 
from slavery. In 1907 there were five hundred 
missionaries at over one hundred stations in the 
colony. These give technical and manual as well 
as religious training. 

King Leopold II, a man of great public vir- 
tues, but with a record of private life over which, 
after death, his friends prefer to draw the veil of 



GREATER BELGIUM: THE CONGO STATE 299 

charity, died on December 17, 1909, after a reign 
of over forty-four years. His only son, Baldwin, 
having died in 1891, Leopold's nephew, Prince Al- 
bert, born April 8, 1875, and married December 
12, 1900, to Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria, suc- 
ceeded to the throne. Three children are the issue 
of this auspicious union. Few monarchs have 
begun their reign with more dignity and popular- 
ity than King Albert, who, besides having traveled 
in the United States, is a warm friend of America, 



CHAPTER XXXI 

BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 

In 1914 Belgium became the military centre 
of the continent and the savior of France from 
German invasion, winning the praise of the world 
because of the valor of her people. She was again 
made " the cockpit of Europe," but for the first 
time by her own will and choice. 

It is proposed, in this chapter, not to sketch 
the great world-war, but to bring our historical 
narrative into focus with the events of 1914, to 
show Belgium's position in law, and her justifica- 
tion as a belligerent. 

In September, 1913, I made my fifth visit to 
Belgium, my course of travel taking me through 
northern France and over much ground that has 
since become the battle-line. With the incident 
of Jemappes (p. 258) fresh in mind, what I saw 
gave me the impression that Europe was already 
an armed camp, that powder was " lying around 
loose," and that with the falling of a single spark 
the long imminent war would break out. It could 
not be deferred many months. Japan, by hum- 
bling Russia in 1905, had disturbed the balance 
of power in Europe and weakened the value of 
the Dual Alliance, while the result of the Balkan 



BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 301 

campaigns had been to bring the Central Powers, 
Germany and Austria, face to face with Russia. 
With steady increase, on both sides, of armies 
and military budgets, recent international events, 
especially between the two nations typified by 
Brunhilda and Fredegonda (p. 22), wore a most 
sinister aspect. 

In France at several places I saw files of sol- 
diers dragging young conscripts from the fields, 
bakeries, and shops to the barracks, there to be 
enrolled and uniformed in the active army. Those 
already under the colors, who had expected to be 
free at Christmas, were ordered to remain in ac- 
tive service for another twelve months. The Balkan 
States had already signed the Treaty of Bucharest, 
which closed the advance of Germany southeast- 
ward, leaving the west as the only direction of 
her ambition for " a place in the sun " and on 
the sea. 

In Belgium, the new military law enlarging 
the army was in process of execution. The forts 
of Liege and other places, long deserted except 
by watchmen, were being garrisoned. Reorganiza- 
tion and expansion of all arms of the service were 
being carried out. The cavalry, especially, seemed 
very active. The nation had at last heeded King 
Leopold's warnings. Nevertheless, the store of 
munitions was slight and the heavier artillery 
was strikingly defective. 

One story that I heard on the spot seemed to 



302 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

me portentous. According to this, a party of 
Belgian officers had been out on a "hike," or 
walk, over the frontier, into Germany. In the 
wastes of heath, where neither tree, nor root, nor 
rock showed anything to stumble over, one of 
the party tripped and fell. Surprised, he kicked 
away the sand, and found a line of steel rails. 
Such a secret railway, thus built close up to 
the frontier, could be uncovered and put to use 
within an hour by a regiment of men. In the day 
of automobiles and aeroplanes also, here was an 
object-lesson showing how rapidly an invading 
army on its way to Paris could be thrown into 
Belgium. 

In 1911, when several army corps of German 
soldiers were massed near the frontier, it was a 
common subject of their conversation that Paris, 
with the new vehicles and artillery, could be 
reached by a rush within ten days. Belgium, a 
little country, was scarcely reckoned as a factor 
in the case. Strategic " necessity " was not likely 
to know law, or care for treaties. 

When in Paris, in 1891, I had witnessed, in 
connection with the revival of the Joan of Arc 
pageantry, the rather spectacular celebration of 
the Franco-Russian alliance. In 1913, I recalled 
the links in the chain of startling facts — that 
Japan, by humbling Russia, had upset the bal- 
ance of power in Europe; the interference of 
Germany in French affairs at Tangier, in Mo- 



BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 303 

rocco ; the Algeciras Conference ; and the inci- 
dent of the German man-of-war Panther, at 
Agadir, in Morocco. The logic of these facts was 
to transform a divided into a united country and 
even " an Eternal France." Since the mania for 
armaments in Europe had reached almost the 
point of insanity, I felt fairly certain that there 
would be war in Europe within two years. As in 
the case of modernized Japan, the action that 
startled the world had been preceded by a century 
of interior, intellectual preparation, through phi- 
losophy, which is stronger than armies, for it cre- 
ates them. 

Under that cardinal doctrine of European state- 
craft, — built up after feudalism had given way 
to monarchy, — " the balance of power," the po- 
sition of Belgium had been fixed by the Great 
Powers in the Treaty of London, signed April 
18, 1839 (p. 280). Article VII declared, " Bel- 
gium . . . shall form an independent and per- 
petually neutral slate." The chief object of both 
Great Britain and Germany in this treaty, though 
the former was most active, had been to form a 
bulwark against France, As King Leopold de- 
clared to Queen Victoria, in 1862, "Our good 
Congress here did not wish it; it was impost 
upon them." To this document, which in 1914 
the German Chancellor, Bethmann von HoUweg, 
referred to as " a scrap of paper," Great Britain, 
France, and Germany were signatories. 



304 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

This treaty, besides recognizing the independ- 
ence of Belgium, settled her external relations, 
and placed her under the safeguard of all the 
Powers. On August 9 and 11, 1870, during the 
Franco - Prussian War, it was reaffirmed by- 
France, Germany, and Great Britain. These 
• three Powers stipulated that the British forces 
were to be used against either the French or the 
Germans, if either should violate the neutrality 
of Belgium. One year after the war, the Treaty 
of 1839 was to remain, as before, the basis of 
Belgium's independence and neutrality. 

The diplomacy, thus made in 1839 and solemnly 
reaffirmed in 1870, debarred Belgium from either 
making any alliance with, or seeking the protec- 
tion of, any single Power. At the Hague Con- 
ference, in 1907, the law was laid down that a 
neutralized state must prevent troops or convoys 
of a belligerent from crossing its territory ; and 
that defense in maintaining neutrality was not an 
act of war. 

A few far-seeing Belgian patriots, knowing that 
their country was the meeting-place of the Latin 
and the Teutonic nations, the key to England and 
France, the gateway to the Atlantic Ocean and 
America, and the point likely to be selected for 
the expansion of Germany, saw that it would be 
coveted by the great inland Power, and urged a 
plan of national defense. 

It was part of the duty of Belgium to fortify 



BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 305 

her frontiers. Hence the great expense incurred 
in erecting the forts which should guard the Maas 
River, and in making Antwerp a fortress and key 
to the system of national defense ! When built, 
these twelve forts on the Maas were of ample 
strength to resist any artillery then known, the 
amazing powers of twentieth-century ordnance 
not being then suspected. 

Events followed rapidly. In 1913, the new 
military law, enlarging the army and means of 
defense for Belgium, was passed. The Clerical 
Party and Ministry had been in power and office 
for thirty years and the law allowing plural vot- 
ing was in force. Besides manhood suffrage, for 
all males above a certain age, those who held a 
degree from the universities had an extra vote, 
and a married man of thirty-five with children, 
another ; thus making it possible for many of the 
voters to cast three ballots. Belgium swarmed 
with clericals, priests and monks, and the native 
host had been reinforced by the large French con- 
tingent driven out of the Republic. Other quali- 
fications conferred voting power, but the limit of 
any one person was three votes. Since men with 
large families usually held Conservative views, it 
will readily be seen how difficult it was for their 
Liberal opponents to receive justice. The real 
question was that of education and the control of 
the schools. Should these be secular or sectarian ? 

This method of voting, against which the Lib- 



306 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

erals had long protested, had been at first devised 
as a three-cornered compromise between Clericals, 
Liberals, and Socialists. In practice it worked 
badly, creating much dissatisfaction, especially 
among the large body of Socialists. 

The Liberal agitation against the Conservative 
Party in power began about 1910, but the elec- 
tions of June, 1913, in which Liberals and Social- 
ists had made union, proved a disappointing sur- 
prise, for many of the timid in the party of fusion 
had absented themselves from the polls. The Cleri- 
cals still held power in Parliament, controlling 
the Senate, and in the Chamber having a major- 
ity of sixteen. 

Against this state of affairs the vanquished, of 
many shades of opinion, united once more to abol- 
ish plural voting and bring in the era of '^ one 
man, one vote." In a country dominated by in- 
dustrialism this could be done by a strike, which, 
led by the Walloons, took place in February, 
1914, paralyzing traffic and transportation. The 
military in large force was ordered out on guard. 

Yet so orderly, self -controlled, and quiet were 
the strikers, with few or none of the usual concom- 
itants of violence, that the display of military force 
was manifestly absurd and the Government wisely 
yielded. The strikers won their point. Reform 
was promised. A law, virtually granting what had 
been agitated, was in process of being framed to 
be reported to the next session of the Chamber 



BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 307 

and Senate which was to meet in autumn. When 
the time came, the Belgian capital was in the 
hands of enemies. 

This strike, organized on an almost national 
scale and lasting ten days, had a twofold effect. 
It cheered the modern-minded men in Belgium. It 
impressed, if not the world in general, at least the 
observing in other countries, convincing them that, 
under stress even of war, the Belgians would show 
themselves a nation of heroes. 

The war-spark fell on the loose powder on June 
28, 1914, when the heir-apparent of Austria was 
killed at Sarajevo in Bosnia, by an anarchist's 
bomb. At once an epidemic of international in- 
sanity broke out in Europe, giving Americans an 
object-lesson. What if the area of the United 
States — which, continental, outlying, and insular 
can cover and overlap Europe — were made up 
of jealous nations, with varieties of forms of gov- 
ernment from despotisms to republics, with a net- 
work of frontiers, camps, customs-houses, race 
and creed hatreds, mutually hostile traditions, 
and still dominated, for the most part, by feudal, 
monarchical, State-Church, and other worn-out 
ideas, which the founders of the American Repub- 
lic had long ago rejected ! 

Our narrative concerns itself only with Bel- 
gium. As in 1870, to protect her neutrality, a 
general mobilization of the Belgian army was or- 
dered on July 31, and carried out within twenty- 



308 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

four hours. Besides the soldiers on the eastern 
frontier, fifty thousand civilians began to dig 
trenches around Li^ge. 

Large quantities of the most portable artworks 
were sent out of the country, chiefly into England. 
Crowning the astonishing international telegraphic 
diplomacy of July, the German Ambassador, on 
the night of Sunday, August 2, notified Belgium 
that "the measures of the enemies of Germany 
obliged her to violate Belgian territory." 

The answer was given that the Belgian Gov- 
ernment had " firmly decided to repel by all means 
in its power any attack against its rights." There 
was no time to consult the nation, but the Parlia- 
ment, in its session at Brussels of Tuesday, Au- 
gust 4, unanimously ratified the decision of the 
Foreign Ofiice. The speech of the king before 
his lawgivers showed a leader and a hero worthy 
of the name. He called for " the calm of firm cour- 
age and a close union of all Belgians:" He ended 
as follows : — 

" If the foreigner, in violation of the neutrality 
of which you have always scrupulously observed 
the obligations, violates our territory, he will find 
all the Belgians grouped round their sovereign, 
who will never betray his constitutional rights, 
and round the Government, invested with the ab- 
solute confidence of the whole nation. 

"Long live independent Belgium ! " 

All the neutral world that loves justice and be- 



BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 309 

Heves in representative government applauded. 
Some, even of the enemies of Belgium, have 
praised her valor and have recognized the honor- 
ableness of her position while they sought justi- 
fication for their own. Again the words of Caesar 
echoed over all lands, singing themselves into 
poetry and song, — ''Omnium Jiorum Belgii for- 
tissimi sunt " (Of all these, the Belgians are the 
bravest). 

Germany's action united all King Albert's 
people. The names of ethnic stocks, parties, reli- 
gions, were all forgotten in one word — Belgium. 

By three routes, in automobiles, by rail, and 
on foot, twenty German army corps moved over 
Belgium toward France. War was waged in the 
heavens above, on the earth beneath, and in the 
waters under the earth. 

All previous theories of strategy seemed con- 
founded by facts. For many weeks, the Allies 
were without plan or unity of forces, leaving the 
little Belgian army to bear the whole brunt and 
to withstand the total shock of the invading host. 
The French rushed to recapture Alsace and Lor- 
raine. The British could not, at least did not, 
promptly support their prot^g^s. Alone, the Bel- 
gian soldiers defended their native soil, thus sav- 
ing Europe. France, England, civilization are in- 
debted to Brave Little Belgium. 

The border town of Vis^ was the first to be 
destroyed by German soldiers arriving in auto- 



310 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

mobiles. The twelve Liege forts, defending the 
Maas, held out after the city had been occupied, 
but fell under the dropping fire of heavy shells 
from the giant howitzers lent by the Austrians. 
The story of their defense and the valor of Bel- 
gian resistance belong among the world's annals 
of loftiest heroism. Brussels was entered on Au- 
gust 20. Namur was bombarded and occupied 
August 22. The siege of Antwerp began on the 
26th and the city was taken. 

After several September battles, Ostend, Nieu- 
poort, Westende, and Middelkerke were captured 
or destroyed. In November, the dikes were cut, 
flooding much of Flanders. By February 15, the 
Germans had captured the trenches at Ypres. In 
May, this ancient city was entered, and among 
the edifices destroyed was the magnificent mediae- 
val Cloth Hall, one of the architectural wonders 
of the world. 

The Belgians had now, perforce, become for 
the most part a nomad nation. The exodus was 
on an enormous scale. Probably a half-million of 
the people fled before the storm of war to Holland, 
to England, and to other lands, many even cross- 
ing the Atlantic. The Dutch repeated, to the ref- 
ugees of 1914, their hospitality of 1567 and the 
generation following. 

Into the question of desolation and alleged 
atrocities, or details of the campaigns, we do not 
here propose to enter. The king and his army 



BRAVE LITTLE BELGIUM 311 

were not the only heroes. Cardinal Mercier, in 
his tireless labors, the American Minister, Brand 
Whitloek, who refused to take his orders from 
any superiors but those in Washington, the nurses, 
physicians, surgeons, priests, nuns, ministers of 
pity, succor, and food — all deserve gratitude and 
undying remembrance. From the first, the Amer- 
ican hand opened and remained unsparing in its 
bounty. The seat of government was moved from 
one Belgian city to another, and at last found 
permanent establishment at Havre, in France. 
Here, on February 16, 1916, the Allies, in addi- 
tion to their practical demonstration with army 
and navy, in August, 1914, the Kussian Minister 
acting as spokesman, " renewed by solemn act the 
agreements " made in 1839, because Belgium had 
been "heroically faithful to its international 
obligations.'' They promised also that Belgium's 
political and economic independence should be 
reestablished and that she should be " amply in- 
demnified for damages suffered.'* 



CHAPTER XXXII 

WHERE POPPIES BLOW 

After the rebirth of the nation, in 1830, Belgium 
found herself situated between the chronic ene- 
mies, France and Germany. The task of national 
defense was committed to her great engineer, 
General Henri Alexis Briahnont (1821-1903). 

The new enterprise must cope with the weapons 
and meet the conditions of modern warfare. The 
mediaeval idea, not wholly abandoned, even after 
the introduction of gunpowder, had been defense, 
by means of thick walls, gates and towers, reared 
within moats, or water defenses, crossed only by 
drawbridges. As artillery became more power- 
ful, this fashion was modified by Coehoorn, Vau- 
ban, and their successors, and the system of low 
batteries of polygonal shape came into vogue. 
Long-range guns and bombs still further com- 
pelled changes, until finally the old idea of walls, 
bastions, and outer girth, enclosing all the ram- 
parts and canals, was abandoned. In place of these, 
were isolated forts, with disappearing guns, and 
built at some distance apart, the projectiles from 
which could sweep the zones of danger, while pre- 
senting to the enemy little target surface from hori- 
zontal fire. With this idea in view, the picturesque 



WHERE POPPIES BLOW 313 

bulwarks and citadels of Belgium, "old in story," 
were abandoned as relics of a past age, and the 
great fortifications at Liege and Namur con- 
structed. 

The military plan for the whole country was so 
arranged that Antwerp, with a double ring of de- 
tached forts, was made the key to the system. 
Brialmont's main ideas were illustrated in the 
sunken structures of steel and concrete, scarcely 
more than visible at a level distance. Within these 
were cupolas of hardest metal, many inches in 
thickness, supposed to be impenetrable by any 
projectiles shot by artillery that was likely ever to 
be invented by man. Very little target surface 
was thus presented to the enemy's gunners. On 
other parts, including gun-shields, he made lavish 
use of armor. Intermediate batteries between the 
main forts were numerous. 

Nevertheless, in 1914, after long preparedness 
on the part of Germany and the use of new in- 
ventions in artillery and in the power of aerial 
bombardment, unforeseen by Brialmont, and when 
there was a lack of coordination in the plans of 
the Allies, the best laid plans of the great Belgian 
engineer came to naught. With two thousand 
Belgians shut up within the cupola forts and 
twenty thousand at Liege and Namur, the cam- 
paign seemed lost within a fortnight. The Ger- 
mans violated the frontier on August 4 and 
attacked the forts, entering also the city of Liege 



314 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

on the 7th. The crossings of the Meuse (Maas) 
were then all in the hands of the invaders. The 
hordes that rushed in spread out, Hke a fan, until 
the whole middle and southern country was over- 
run; while the right wing advanced north to out- 
flank the Belgian army covering Brussels. Step 
by step, despite the close contesting of every inch 
of their soil by the brave defenders, the Germans 
took Aerschot, Louvain, and MaUnes. Their van 
was driven back by sorties from Antwerp, but their 
main host pressed on, soon covering the seaport 
city, which was the key of national defense. By 
the 25th, Brussels had been entered and Antwerp 
was invested. 

The French attacked on the Sambre and the 
British at Mons, but both Allied armies soon 
abandoned their positions, and retreated south, 
pursued by Von Kluck. Passing through Cambrai 
on the 26th, and St. Quentin on the 29th, the 
standards of red, black and gold and the insignia 
of the double-headed eagle were planted beyond 
the Oise. Before the end of the first week in Sep- 
tember, the Germans were thirty miles beyond the 
Marne and Paris seemed doomed. Other invading 
armies crossed the Meuse south of Namur. The 
German problem was now to keep their forces in 
touch with each other and to capture Namur it- 
self. To this end, the heaviest artillery was brought 
up and the siege was startlingly, almost incredibly 
short. Under the rain of projectiles, some of them 



WHERE POPPIES BLOW 315 

weighing a ton, Brialmont's theories were blown 
to the winds and his structures into rubbish. The 
Liege fortress fell on the 23d of August. This tri- 
umph enabled the Grermans to cross the Meuse, 
the whole line from Verdun to Namur being in 
their power, and to unite their forces, now num- 
bering a million. 

At Dinant, the first crossing was made by the 
Saxon army that had violated the neutraUty of 
Luxembourg, by its march across. The Duke of 
Wurtemberg made the second crossing between 
Mezieres and Sedan. The army of the Crown 
Prince, after traversing the hill country of Argonne, 
was compelled to halt immediately north of Ver- 
dun, for the impassable fortresses and their un- 
flinching defenders never allowed him to see the 
Marne. The obstinacy of the heroic defense of 
Verdun upset the German plans of strategy and 
the Bavarians held back. Everywhere the invad- 
ing army had been checked. It was at the Marne 
that the proud waves of invasion were, for a time, 
stayed. Here, on September 6, was begun the 
most terrific and decisive conflict in the world's 
history. The war operations, lasting from Sep- 
tember 6 to September 12, are referred to as "the 
Battle of the Marne." From that time forward, 
the war-cry, everywhere heard in the West, was 
this: "They shall not pass"; and they did not. 

After the battle of the Marne, the chief Ger- 
man activities were transferred to the northwest. 



316 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

The attack on Antwerp began on September 27. 
The second outer ring of forts was taken on the 
9th of October. When the Germans entered the 
city, many of the citizens, the garrison, and the 
British marines escaped across the Scheldt into 
Holland. The towns of Flanders fell in rapid suc- 
cession and the trench lines were extended from 
the Oise to the sea. The battles of Ypres and the 
Yser marked the crisis of the struggle in the north. 

By the end of October invasion had become 
occupation, with a stationary front. With some 
episodes and exceptions, this sort of war formed 
the chief feature of land operations during nearly 
four years, until the Americans arrived and the 
word "retire" gave place to the order, "forward.'* 
While poppies bloomed, the crosses multiplied. 
Again, of Belgium, the old "cockpit of Europe," it 
might be said, in Bryant's words, "All that tread 
[this part of] the globe are but a handful to the 
tribes that slumber in its bosom." The seaports, 
Ostend and Zeebrugge, were made bases of sub- 
marine warfare for the destruction of commerce. 

The Germans, though checked, feeling that they 
now possessed Belgium, proceeded to wipe out, if 
possible, both her nationality and her economic 
capacities. The policy of immediate destruction 
of venerable edifices, churches, town halls and 
noble works of art,^ with the shooting of civiUans, 

^ Four small volumes, entitled Villes Meurtries de Bel- 
giqiLC, by noted authors, describing the ruined Walloon cities. 



WHERE POPPIES BLOW 317 

in the streets and gardens, was changed for one 
of "reconstruction." That is, the wholesale murder 
and desolation, as illustrated at Liege and Louvain, 
which had been inaugurated for the purpose of 
"deterrent examples," gave way to the two-fold 
plan of the economic paralysis of Belgium and the 
enrichment of Germany — chiefly through the 
removal of machinery and supplies. 

The more subtle activities, and those even more 
detested by natives of the Belgian fatherland, were 
atrociously manifested, in the attempt to alienate 
permanently the northern, or Flemish region and 
people, from the southern, or Walloon half of Bel- 
gium. At the conclusion of a triumphant peace, it 
was expected, in BerUn, that the dominant culture, 
language, and discipline, with industrial, economic 
and marine control of resources in Belgium, should 
be German. This pohcy was especially manifested 
in the attempted transformation of Ghent Univer- 
sity. 

Yet from the first, the signs of the utterly humili- 
ating failure were stamped upon this atrocious 
enterprise — so worthy of Nebuchadnezzar and 
of the Huns. It is hard to say which victory was 
the nobler or finally more complete — that gained 

Li^ge, Namur, Dinant, Chimay, Tournai, etc.; Brussels and 
Louvain; the cities of Flanders, Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, 
Nieuport, Dixmude, etc.; Antwerp, Malines, and Lierre, have 
been published by G. Van Oest et Cie, Brussels and Paris, 1917. 
Also La Guerre et Us (Euvres d'Art en Belgique, by the 
same publishers, 1917. 



318 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

in the field and trench by Belgian valor, through 
tenacity in arms, or that demonstrated in the in- 
coercible spirit of the people. With eighty per cent 
of the Belgian army composed of Flemings, such 
a shameful enterprise was doomed to disgraceful 
failure. In unswerving fealty and with one voice, 
the whole nation sang the national anthem, La 
Brabanconne, exalting "King, Law and Liberty." 
Nor could the mulct of a milUon marks, each time 
it was heard from a congregation, hinder the out- 
flow of this intractable spirit of a nation in unity. 
Against the infamy of the German terror, two 
or three Uterary episodes, which stood out in bold 
rehef, added to the gayety of nations, while two 
towering human figures won the world's unceasing 
admiration. Incarnating the deathless spiritual 
forces of his native land, unquaiUng in his courage, 
— as ready to fight either bad men or devils, — 
while unceasing in his labors of love and mercy 
for his people, was Cardinal Mercier. Nor did the 
invaders, with all their lawlessness and dearly 
cherished inheritances from the Huns, dare to lay 
hands upon him. Mercier survived, not only to 
win the gratitude of his own people and the thanks 
of civilization, but to be welcomed, in September, 
1919, by Americans of all ancestry, names, creeds, 
and cultures, as the representative of what is best, 
not only in Belgium but in humanity. His name, 
throughout all time, will shine as the exemplar of 
the courage of an unarmed man against mailed 



WHERE POPPIES BLOW 319 

brute force and of the power of spiritual conviction 
over the might of infamy. 

As a representative of the people's courage and 
willingness to bear the cross of suffering and die 
for principle, the sovereign, Ejng Albert, stood 
forth as leader and inspirer of the army and the 
nation. The new postal insignia of peace times, 
issued in 1919, show him with his helmet on, as 
war leader and every inch a king. His heroic wife 
served as nurse of the sick and wounded, his son, 
the Crown Prince and Duke of Flanders, wore the 
uniform of the nation's defenders. 

Yet even war may have its comic episodes, and 
a nation in duress its laughter as well as tears. 
Literally, some plants exhale their sweetest fra- 
grance when most bruised. Beneath the crushing 
heels of the conquerors there was printed and 
widely circulated many a merry newspaper, chief 
among which was "Free Belgium" (''La Libre Bel- 
gique"). The whole history of this Mar-Hohenzol- 
lern sheet recalled the days of the Catacombs in 
Rome, and of Martin Mar-prelate in England, 
when men fought stupid kings and arbitrary bish- 
ops. Constantly lampooning and caricaturing the 
Germans, its wit and humor were as coarse as 
cannon balls and as widely dispersed as shrapnel, 
while its assaults were as clumsy, but as effective 
as the tanks. It kept alive and undaunted the 
spirit of the people. The German governor found 
a copy on his desk, where it had been punctually 



320 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

though mysteriously laid for him. The Kaiser's 
officers discovered it pinned to their coat tails. 
The whole story of its career has since been told, 
but in its initial issue, it made declaration thus: 
"Our sole object is to strengthen Belgian patriot- 
ism until the hour, as yet unknown, but certain, of 
the deliverance of our noble and glorious Uttle 
country, victim of Teutonic treachery." 

This was but one illustration of the bilingual 
literary activity of the Belgian men of letters who 
wrote in both Dutch (Flemish) and French (Wal- 
loon), even when their country was in the crucible 
of war. Space does not permit us even to name the 
Belgian writers, or the works ^ of those who kept 
their pens busy in loyalty to king and defiance of 
treachery. 

Belgium and the United States paid each other 
mutual honor, when they raised the diplomatic 
mission of each country to the rank of an embassy. 
Our own country has been nobly represented at 
Brussels, in the time of war's trials, by Brand 
Whitlock, man of letters and aflfairs, whose book 
on Belgium is a classic, for both its style and con- 
tents, and as a thrilling war record. Few works of 
its kind can bear comparison with it. The autumn 
of 1919 is marked by the arrival of the first Belgian 
ambassador. Baron Emil de Cartier de Marchienne, 

^ See the two excellent, handy volumes, Antkologie des 
Ecrivains Beiges, Poetes et Prosateurs, by L. Dumont- 
Wilden. Paris, Georges Cres & Cie., 1918. 



WHERE POPPIES BLOW 321 

who, from February, 1917, was Belgian minister 
at Washington, and who, in Paris, in 1918, married 
an American lady, Mrs. Hamilton Gary. 

With such honors paid to the American com- 
monwealth by King, Cardinal and Ambassador, 
it is well to open the book of history at a page 
almost forgotten, to remind both nations, on either 
side of the Atlantic, of the days when the Belgian 
lion — the oldest heraldic design in Europe — 
was the emblem of all the seventeen provinces 
of the Netherlands in union, from Ameland to 
Avesnes. The Spanish desolation of 1567 — now 
cast in the shade by the German horrors of 1914- 
1918 — split the country into two parts, northern 
and southern. Yet even the wonderful Dutch Re- 
pubUc owed an inexpressible debt to the refugees 
from Belgic land. These, besides whole regiments 
under the seven-striped flag, furnished the explor- 
ers, geographers, astronomers and promoters of 
science, industry and invention that made the new 
nation great. It was they, who awoke that spirit 
of discovery and enterprise that sent the Dutch 
ships into all parts of the world, and to the discov- 
ery and colonization of the land which includes our 
four great Middle States. Virgin Manhattan was 
first settled by Belgians, who at first named it New 
Avesnes, after their old home. What is now New 
York State bore the oflScial title of Nova Belgica, 
or New Belgium.^ 

i See The Story of New Netherland (pp. 1 and i). and "La 



322 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

With the name of Plancius is associated that 
of Ussehncx, founder of the West India Com- 
pany, under which the middle region of America, 
especially New York and Delaware, was settled, 
organized, and given a civil government with the 
name of New Belgium. The first explorer of its 
coast was Adrian Block, who bestowed upon the 
entrance into Long Island Sound the name of 
Hellegat (meaning the Door of Splendor, but, lo- 
cally, called Hell Gate), after a branch of the 
Scheldt River, in Zeeland, between Axel and Hulst. 
A chief man in the West India Company was Jean 
de Laet, of Antwerp, who was also the historian 
of Nova Belgica. Until 1624, though many ships, 
fishermen, fur traders and adventurers, from the 
RepubKc, visited the new Dutch province in 
America, no attempt was made to colonize it with 
permanent settlers, until the thirty famihes of 
Walloons, under Jesse de Forest, of Hainault, 
arrived. They had sojourned in hospitable Leyden 
and they came with wives and children to make 
homes, and with agricultural implements to culti- 
vate the soil.^ 

Other Belgians of fame are the two Rapaljes, 
one, Antoine, being the father of the first white 
child born in the colony, Sara de Rapalje. Gov- 

Part des Beiges dans la Fondation de Tetat de New York/' par 
le Baron de Borchgrave, in the Bulletin de la Societe Beige 
(TEtudes ColonialeSy December, 1913. 

* See A Walloon Family in America, by Mrs. Robert W. De 
Forest, 2 vols. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1914. 



WHERE POPPIES BLOW 323 

ernor Peter Minuit, Jean Mousner de le Montagne, 
Sebastian Janssen Krol, who was church officer, 
director at Fort Orange, and reputed inventor of 
the cruller — from a pun on his name of similar 
pronunciation with the Dutch word krull, meaning 
to curl; Isaac de Rasieres, who has given us the 
first graphic picture of New Plymouth and the 
Pilgrim Fathers at worship; and the Flemings 
under Pauw, at Pavonia, near Hoboken, which 
had taken over the name of the village of Hoboken 
near Ghent, named originally after the famous 
Parisian perfumer Hubbigan, or Houbigant. In all 
probability, people from the same Belgian locaUty 
gave the name of Ghent to their settlement near 
Albany. Antoine Godin, or Godyn, who founded 
a Dutch colony on the Delaware River, was also a 
Belgian. 

Only a few of the names of the rank and file of 
the colonists who began the Empire State have 
been preserved; but, scanning the hsts of ship's 
passengers, the county, church and marriage 
records, extant and accessible, we find that nearly 
every large town or city, in every one of the 
provinces formerly or at present a part of Belgium, 
was represented by men, women or children; and 
some of these by scores and hundreds. Such 
researchers as De Boer, Mrs. Van Rensselaer and 
Borchgrave have recently added considerably to 
the list. 

Lack of space, while it forbids further revela- 



324 BELGIUM: THE LAND OF ART 

tions, either from this fascinating crypt of history 
or from the archives of Holland, may excuse the 
sketchiness and cramped nature of this chapter. 
In our day, the story of hospitaUty of neighbors, 
shown, as of old, to the million or so of Belgian 
refugees from the horrors of war, is a noble one. 
For several years, Holland expended one fifth of 
the national revenue in helping the Belgians. Nor 
can we tell of what England, Wales, Ireland and 
France have done, in furnishing temporary homes 
to the victims of the German invasion, nor de- 
scribe the many memorials of gratitude — of 
works of art, struck in gold, painted on canvas, or 
reared in noble architecture, as, for example, at 
Amersfoort — which show that the Belgians are 
not unmindful of help given them in time of need. 



THE END 



CHIEF EVENTS IN BELGIAN 
HISTORY 



The Roman Dominion . . 

Invasion of the Franks 

The Franks established 

Belgium made part of Austrasia 

Century of Christian missionaries 

The Carlovingians «... 

Church and State united — Charlemagne 

The Verdun compact : Lothairingia . 

Duchy of Loth air and Principality of Li^ge 

Charter of Grammont 

Battle of Cassel 

The Belgian Crusades 

Invention of lace and tapestry 

The order of the Beguins . 

Rise and prosperity of the Communes 

Bruges Matins : French massacred . 

Battle of Courtrai (Battle of the Golden Spurs) 

July 11, 1302 

The van Arteveldes 1285-1382 

The Joyous Entry of Wenzel : Constitution . 1356 

Battle of Roosebeke : Flemings overthrown . 1382 

Emigration of Flemings to England . . 1383-1400 

Counts of Flanders 864-1419 

Counts of Namur 908-1421 

Counts of Hainault 915-1433 

Counts and Dukes of Luxembourg . . . 963-1467 
Counts and Dukes of Brabant , . . 1015-1430 

Counts and Dukes of Limbourg • • 1055-1279 



B.C. 53-A.D. 406 

. A.D. 300 

361 

511 

. 600-700 

. 614-814 

800 

843 

956-1096 

1068 

1071 

1096-1270 

about 1200 

beginning 1200 

. 900-1500 

May 19, 1302 



326 CHIEF EVENTS IN BELGIAN HISTORY 

Prince-Bishops of Liege ..... 972-1794 
The Dukes of Burgundy .... 1384-1476 
Jacqueline of Bavaria .... 1404-1436 
Knights of the Golden Fleece .... 1430 
Philip the Good : First bloom of Flemish paint- 
ing 1419-1467 

D^but of the House of Austria .... 1467 
Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Nether- 
lands 1506-1530 

Charles V 1515-1555 

"The Troubles": Reformation era . . 1517-1648 
Margaret of Parma, Regent . . • 1559-1567 

Guido de Bray : The Belgic Confession . . 1567 

Invasion of Alva : Birth of Usselincz . . 1567 

Flight of the Walloons and Flemings . . 1567 

Pacification of Ghent 1577 

The Catholic Reaction : Activities of Parma 1578-1592 
The Great Infanta : Albert and Isabella . 1598-1633 
Jesse de Forest's Walloons in New Nether land . 1623 

The Age of Rubens 1609-1640 

The Peace of Munster 1648 

•' A Century of Misery " : " The Cockpit " 1600-1700 
Blockade of the Scheldt .... 1648-1860 

Peace of Ryswick 1697 

The Barrier Forts erected 1713 

The Austrian Netherlands .... 1714-1794 

Ennessens executed ...... 1719 

The Pragmatic Sanction . . . , . 1725 

The Seven Years' War : British victories . 1755-1763 
Era of Maria Theresa .... 1740-1780 

The " Crowned Anarchist," Joseph II . 1780-1790 
The Belgian United States .... 1790 

War between France and Austria . . . 1792 

Dumouriez enters Brussels .... 1792 

The French domination : Napoleonic era . 1792-1814 



CHIEF EVENTS IN BELGIAN HISTORY 327 



Holland and Belgium united 

The Treaty of Ghent .... 

The Belgian Revolution : Independence 

The statesmanship of Rogier 

Reign of King Leopold I . 

" Iron roads " : Railway system begam 

Frere-Orban's work .... 

Fiftieth Anniversary of Freedom 

The Belgian soldiers in Mexico . 

Reign of Leopold II . 

Belgians in Africa .... 

Stanley's exploration completed 

The Congo Free State 

The Belgian Congo .... 

King Albert begins his reign 

Eighty-year Celebration ; Brussels Exposition 

The new military law 

The great, peaceful strike . 

Mobilization of the army . 

Germany's notification of war 

Invasion of Belgium by the Germans. 

King's speech. Parliament votes resistance August 4, 1914 

Brussels occupied .... August 20, 1914 

Belgian government at Havre .... 1915 

The Powers reaffirm Belgium's neutrality . Feb. 14, 1916 

Unrestricted German submarine warfare begun Feb. 1, 1917 

American relations with Germany severed Feb. 3, 1917 

United States declares war on Germany . April 6, 1917 

American troops in Belgium, Oudenarde . . 1918 

Parade in New York of the Belgian contingent June 4, 1918 

King Albert reenters Ostend . . . Oct. 21, 19X8 

The King declares a liberal constitution . Nov. 22, 1918 

Belgians decorate American graves at Oudenarde 

May 30, 1919 
King Albert and Cardinal Mercier visit America Sept. 1919 



1814-1830 
1814 
1830 

1831-1883 

1831-1865 
1833 

1880-1894 
1880 

1864-1866 

1866-1909 
1876 
1877 
ltJ85 
1908 
1909 
1910 
1913 
1914 

y 31, 1914 
August 2, 1914 
August 3, 1914 



Ju 



INDEX 



Abdication of Charles V, 191-93. 

Adams, John, 185, 186. 

Adams, John Q., 261. 

Adrian, Pope, 177, 183. 

Africa, 295-99. 

Agriculture, 16, 242. 

Aix, 257. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 40, 42, 236. 

Albert, Archduke, 216-26. 

Albert, King, 282-99. 

Alliance, 121, 237. 

Alma Tadema, 28. 

Alva, 77, 141, 154, 206, 209, 267, 278. 

Ambiorix, 13, 15. 

Ambrose, 36. 

America and Belgium, 76, 123, 126, 

164, 178, 180, 182, 185, 186, 192, 197, 

222, 296. 
Americans, 2, 17, 149, 164. 
Amsterdam, 206, 278. 
Anabaptists, 196. 
Ancestors, 17, 19, 25, 29, 204. 
Andrea Dorea, 185, 186. 
Angelo, Michael, 151. 
Anglo-Saxons, 39. 
Anjou, 210. 
Annexation, 53, 280. 
Antigonus, 6, 7, 9. 
Antwerp, 4-^, 15, 16, 143, 181, 199, 

206, 222, 229, 238,258, 274, 275,278. 

279, 289, 292. 
Appenzell, 213. 
Archers, 100,1168. 
Architecture, 107, 108, 113, 223, 292, 

294. 
Ardennes, 13. 
Area, 194, 295, 298. 
Armies, 95, 134, 148, 194, 276, 278. 
Arms, 8, 115, 194. 
A.rr&.s 1^8 
Art, 25, 63, 101, 105, 114, 144, 152, 

162, 222, 223, 242, 286, 294. 
Arteveldes. See yan Arteveldes. 
Artists, 150, 157, 222, 286. 
Asia, 82, 83, 144, 288. 
Austria, 163, 167, 169, 174, 176, 234, 

238, 289. 
Avignon, 127, 128. 
Axes, 27, 29. 
Azores, 76, 77. 

Balance of i)ower, 234-40. 
Baldwins, 65, 60, 74, 77, 79, 138. 
Bank, 293. 



Bankers, 110, 121. 

Banners, 104, 128,129, 147, 148,161, 

Barneveldt, 218. 
Barricades, 272, 273. 
Barrier forts, 237, 245. 
Batavian Republic, 257. ' 
Battles, 11, 45, 67, 75, 76, 100, 104, 

122, 129, 153, 219, 262, 273, 290. 
Bavon, St., 34. 
Beer, 9, 145, 146. 
Bees, 20, 28, 35. 
Beggars, 200. 
Beguin nuns, 85, 86. 
Belfry, 108, 115, 151. 
Belgae, 14. 
Belgia, 13. 

Belgian United States, 247, 248. 
Belgic Confession of Faith, 197- 

202. 
Belgium, 52, 131, 132, 150, 214, 219, 

2!^, 272-99. 
Belgium and Great Britain, 67, 

248. 
Bells, 108, 115, 116, 146, 161, 166, 

189. 
Bible, 179, 224. 

Bi-lingual problems, 15, 16, 17. 
Bishops, 103. 
Black Death, 124, 134. 
Blankenberehe, 296. 
Blenheim, 163. 

Blockade, 220, 221. See Scheldt. 
Blouses, 277. 
Boduognat, 10, 15. 
Bourbons, 20, 166, 239. 
Brabant, 6, 16, 77, 132, 137, 301. 
Brabo, 6, 7. 
Bricks, 112. 
Bronze. See Statues. 
Browning, 79, 257. 
Bruges, 43, 78, 79, 96, 97, 110, 111, 

113, 118, 120, 154, 167, 184, 209. 
Bruneel, 147. 
Brunhilda, 22-25. 
Brussels, 16, 43, 74, 86, 141, 143, 166, 

190-93, 205, 214, 224, 235, 237,240, 

247, 256, 259, 270-76, 285, 292, 293. 
Buddha, 180. 
Burg, 60. 
Burgundy, 20, 66, 130, 131, 133-64, 

158, 171, 179, 191, 242, 248. 
Bushido, 69. 
Bylaandt, 262, 272, 373. 



330 



INDEX 



Caesar, 10-13. 

Calais, 122. 

Calvin, 196. 

Calvinism, 196, 228. 

Campine, 16, 257, 276. 

Canals, 111, 240. 

Canary Islands, 77. 

Carpets, 82, 157. 

Cartoons, 157, 163. 

Cassel, 66, 67. 

Castles, 50, 84, 90. 

Cathedrals, 5, 34, 35, 107, 108, 143. 

Caudenberg, 143, 191. 

Caxton, William, 144. 

Century of misery, 237. 

Champagne, 107. 

Character of Belgians, 145, 146. 

Charlemagne, 21, 39-^9, 175. 

Charles of Lorraine, 239-43. 

Charles the Bold, 146-54, 248. 

Charles V, 62, 59, 164, 175, 188, 190- 

94. 
Charlotte, 289. 
Charters, 65, 68, 126, 165, 188. 
Chass^, General, 277-79. 
Childeric, 28. 

China, 21, 59, 66, 158, 169, 224, 287. 
Chivalry, 69. 

Christianity, 21-26, 30-38, 40. 
Chronology, 301-03. 
Church and State, 41, 55, 245, 246, 

281. 
Ciyic architecture, 107, 292. 
Civil rights, 65. 
Civility, 236, 237. 
Classics, 179. 
Clawaerts, 96. 
Clotaire, 22, 24. 
Clothing, 21, 114. 
Clotilda, 21, 29. 
Clovis, 20-22, 29, 54, 163. 
Coal, 16. 

Cockades, 46, 264, 272. 
Cockerill, John, 267. 
Coins, 131. 
Cologne, 103, 104. 
Colors, 6, 20, 272. 
Commerce, 82, 106, 293. 
Commines, 47, 58, 134. 
Cond6, 229, 230. 
Confessional, 231. 
Congo, 288, 289, 295-99. 
Congresses, 252, 260, 274, 275, 280, 

285, 289, 296. 
Conscience, Henri, 55, 101, 276,277, 

293. 
Constantino, 34, 38-45. 
Constantinople, 80, 81, 107. 
Constitutions, 125, 165, 247, 275, 

283. 
Costume, 27, 29, 93, 113, 114. 
Councils, Belgic, 178, 185. 



Counts, 131, 136, 301. 

Counts of Flanders, 57, 61, 13L 

172 301. 
Courtray* 97-101, 118, 130. 
Creesers, 187, 188. 
Crespy, 189. 
Crossbows, 115. 
Croye, 134. 

Crusades, 70-76, 79, 81. 
Customs, 99, 114. 

Daisies. 5ec Marguerites. 

Damme, 110. 

Dead cities, 113, 131. 

De Bres. See Guido de Bray. 

De Forest, 43, 203. 

De Forest, Jesse, 203, 302. 

De Graeff, 186. 

De Groot, 120. 

Democracy, 134. 

De Potter, Louis, 268. 

Devil, 88, 89. 

Di-ethnic problems, 15, 16, 17, 53- 

55. 
Dinant, 153. 
Dolmens, 18, 292. 
Douai, 236. 
Dragon, 80, 143. 
Dress, 96, 114. 
Drinks, 9, 145, 146. 
Dualism, 16, 17. 
Dukes of Brabant, 190, 247, 248, 

256, 301. 
Dumouriez, 255. 
Dunkirk, 1, 2, 193, 221, 230. 
DUrer, Albert, 181. 
Dutch Republic, 123, 202. 
Dyes, 1, 2, 159. 
Dynasties, 131, 301, 302. 

Earth-kissing, 99. 

Easel, 3£^ 

Economic systems, 110, 180, 260, 

288 293 
Education, 91, 217, 224, 231, 232, 266, 

270, 281, 298. 
Edward III, 121, 122. 
Egmont, 141, 193, 205, 206. 
Elba, 260. 
Elijah, 156. 

Elizabeth (Queen) of Bavaria, 299. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 4. 
Elstred, 57. 

Emblems, 28, 202. See Banners. 
Embroidery, 89. 
Emigration, 127, 195, 203, 206, 207, 

221 256 288 
England,' 53, 67, 117, 119, 160, 170, 

200, 207, 223, 237. 
Ennessens, 237, 268. 
Erasmus, 177, 179. 
Estaminets, 9, 11. 



INDEX 



331 



Etiquette of Courts, 135, 167, 171, 



itiqu 
172. 



Exiles, 202, 203, 208, 221, 261. See 
Refugees. 

Fairs, 106. 

Fairy tales, 6, 11, 155. 

Falck, 265. 

Falconry, 43, 172. 

Father of his country, 190, 193. 

Fauna, 18. 

Ferdinand, 229. 

Ferrer, Francisco, 214. 

Fertility, 18. 

Feudalism, 49, 50, 55-59, 94, 102, 
216. 

Feuds, 23. 

Fillmore, Millard, 283. 

Finance, 183, 187, 252, 293. 

Flag, 6, 20, 77, 104, 185, 186,202,219, 
220, 244, 245, 275, 279, 295. 

Flanders, 14, 17, 46, 47, 133. 

Flax, 90, 99. 

Fleming land, 14, 47. 

Flemings, 15-17, 47, 62, 76, 114, 157, 
195, 199, 200. 

Flemings in England, 97, 127, 200. 

Flemish, 16, 17, 54, 112. 

Flemish movement, 54, 55, 101, 
293. See Conscience, Henri. 

Fleur-de-lys, 20, 97, 156. 

Flowers, 20, 88, 99, 194, 282, 286. 

Forests, 12, 17, 19. 

France, 22, 23, 51, 95, 105, 254-62, 
278, 284, 287. 

Francis 1, 184, 187, 188, 189. 

Franks, 14, 20-29. 

Fredegonda, 22-24, 29. 

Frederick Henry, 227-28. 

French influence, 17, 170. 

French knights, 99, 100, 128-30. 

French language, 16, 54, 55. 

French Revolution, 132, 255, 258. 

Fr6re-0rban, 286, 287. 

Froissart, 58, 128, 134. 

Fugitives, 14, 47, 206, 207. See Em- 
igration, and Exiles. 

Galswinthe, 23. 

Gamhier, 261. 

Gauls, 16, 17. 

Genealogy, 202-04. 

Genoa, 185. 

George III, 251. 

German influence, 17, 169, 300. 

Germany, 23, 51, 287, 298. 

Ghent, 43, 68, 118, 128, 135, 137, 146- 

48, 163, 165, 166, 173, 187-89, 194, 

209, 261, 267. 
Gileppe dam, 252. 
Godfrey de Bouillon, 8, 73-76. 
Golden dragon, 80. 



Golden Fleece, 58, 138-41, 163, 191. 
Golden Spurs, 97, 100-02, 130. 
" Good Day," 98, 100, 128. 
Gothic architecture, 107, 223. 
Grammont, 60, 65, 126. 
Granson, 153. 
Greek 42 

Guido'deBray, 188, 197-202. 
Guillotine, 256. 

Hague, 221, 227, 265. 
Hamault, 10, 16, 56, 66, 137. 
Hand-cutting, 7. 
Hanseatic League, 110. 
Hasselt, 257. 
Heaths, 16, 277. 
Heraldry, 8, 18, 78. 
Heralds, 103. 
Hoboken, 267. 
Hogendorp, 264, 265. 
Holland, 185, 248, 263-65. 
Holy Grail, 78, 140. 
Holy Roman Empire, 190. 
Hoom, 141, 185, 206. 
Horses, 18, 24. 
Huet, Busken, 249. 
Hugonet, 166. 
Huguenots, 204, 208, 235. 
Huns, 36. 
Huy, 72. 
Hygiene, 125. 

Industrialism, 51, 66, 118. 

Infanta, Isabella, 216, 217, 226, 229. 

Inquisition, 209, 210, 217, 222. 

Interiors, 223. 

Inventions, 87, 112. 

Ireland, 25, 26. 

Irish in Belgium, 86, 87, 239« 

Irving, 278. 

Italians, 112, 121, 183. 

Italy, 110. 

Jacqueline of Bavaria, 56, 115, 137, 

138, 161. 
Japan, 5, 6, 8, 21, 53, 55, 59, 66, 100, 

130, 224, 287. 
Java, 266. 
Jean Bart, 2. 
Jemappes, 255, 258. 
Jerusalem, 74-76. 
Jesuits, 197, 223, 224, 231-33. 
Joanna the Mad, 175, 176. 
John of Brabant, 104, 105. 
John of Gaunt, 121. 
Jordaens, 222. 
Joseph (Kaiser), 244-47. 
Journalism, 268, 269, 284. 
Joyous entry, 125, 126, 165, 217, 246. 

Kenyon College, 261. 
Kermis, 109, 145. 



332 



INDEX 



Kilaen, 225. 
Kossuth, 283. 

Lace, 90-93, 214, 269. 

Laeken, 259, 272. 

Lafayette, 256, 271. 

Landscape, 13-18, 140, 157. 

Land tenure, 50, 63, 241-43. 

Language, 46, 47, 222. 

Latin language, 41, 42, 231. 

Law, 125, 149, 224, 294. 

Legends, 34, 87. 

Leopold 1, 120, 276, 283-87, 290, 291, 

294, 
Leopold II, 288, 291, 294. 
Leprosy, 125. 
Leyden, 203, 204, 208, 222. 
Li^ge, 13, 38, 39, 64, 68, 132, 149, 194, 

209,248-63, 273,286,292. 
Liliaerts, 96. 
Lilies, 20, 96, 202. 
Lille, 279. 

Liraburg, 105, 132, 257, 280. 
Lion, 8, 78, 151, 194, 267, 277, 278. 
Lion of Flanders, 96, 101. 
Lion's claws, 96. 
Lisle, 229, 236. 
Literature, 110, 222, 242, 293. 
Lohengrin, 7. 
London, 200, 240. 
Longfellow, 116, 204. 
Loom, 60. 
Lotharia, 51. 

Louis Philippe, 271, 281, 283. 
Louis XIV, 166, 236, 236. 
Louvain, 125, 126, 127, 224, 240, 246, 

266. 
Low Countries, 1, 134. 
Loyola, 196. 
Luther, 181. 
Lutherans, 196. 

Maas, 16, 18, 72. 

Maastricht, 13, 245. 

Maerlant, 110. 

Maeterlinck, 55, 293. 

Magna Charta, 65. 

Maid of Belgia, 286. 

Malines, 142, 176. 

Manhattan, 3, 203. 

Margaret of England, 150, 151, 

156, 163, 165. 
Margaret of Parma, 92, 193. 
Margaret of Savoy, 176, 184, 

187. 
Marguerites, 99, 150, 151, 203. 
Maria Theresa, 235, 238, 243. 
Marie Antoinette, 244, 245. 
Market-place, 120, 147, 148. 
Marlborough, 163, 238. 
Marriages, 136, 151, 167-69, 289. 
Martyrs, Place of the, 273. 



Mary of Burgundy, 116, 148, 154, 

161, 165-72. 
Mary of England, 190. 
Mary of Hungary, 184. 
Matsys, Quentin, 161. 
Maurice, 3, 218, 219. 
Maximilian, 167, 172. 
Maximilian of Mexico, 189, 290. 
Mayor of the palace, 21. 
Memling, Hans, 152, 161. 
Menapii, 12, 67 
Mercator, 205, 222-25. 
M^rode, Count de, 268. 
Metternich, 254. 
Meuse. ^ceMaas. 
Mexico, 288, 289, 290. 
Mikado, 8, 21. 
Mines, 16. 
Miracles, 37. 

Missionaries, 30, 31, 297, 298. 
Monasteries, 31, 37, 242. 
Money power, 113. 
Monks, 32, 55. 
Monroe Doctrine, 289. 
Mons, 10, 56, 68. 
Monuments, 101, 257, 258, 282, 290, 

291, 295, 296. See Statues. 
Morals, 146. 
Morini, 12, 35. 
Morocco affairs, 28, 282, 
Motley, 4, 8. 
Mottoes, 139, 140, 141, 267, 275, 

288. 
Mountains, 16. 
Museums, 33, 295. 
Music, 152, 153, 239, 271, 272. 
Mysticism, 109. 
Myths, 88, 139, 140. 

Namur, 132, 248. 

Napoleon, 20, 28, 133, 258-62, 269. 

Napoleon III, 284. 

Nationality, 15, 16, 108. 

Navy, Dutch, 212, 220. 

Needlecraft, 89. 

Nervii, 10, 11. 

Neutrality, 119. 

New Netherland, 1, 77, 230. 

Niellon, 276. 

Nieuwpoort, 2, 219. 

Nobility, 78, 131, 132. 

Noircarmes, 201. 

Norsemen, 40. 

Nunneries, 33, 85. 

Oil painting, 144. 

Orient, the, 82, 83, 144, 220, 221, 266. 

Oriflamme, 128, 129. 

Ostend, 3, 219, 220, 221, 238. 

Ostend Company, 238. 

Pacification of Ghent, 209. 



INDEX 



333 



Paganism, 18, 21. 

Fageauts, 33, 292. 

Painting, 109, 144, 166, 273. 

Palace of Justice, 292, 295. 

Pamphlets, 246, 254, 260. 

Papal schism, 103. 

Paris, 20, 22, 213, 270, 284. 

Parliament, 165. 

Parma, 209-11. 

Parties, 95, 246, 248. 

Passion Play, 88. 

Paulowna, Anna, 264. 

Pa via, 183, 191. 

Peasant war, 257. 

Pepin, 21. 

Perin, Leonard, 232, 233. 

Perseus, 139, 140. 

Peter the Hermit, 71-73. 

Petitions, 268, 270. 

Philip, Count, 78, 131. 

Philip the Fair, 174-76. 

Philip the Good, 142, 161. 

Philip II, 141, 182, 183, 189, 190, 
193, 195, 200, 206, 210, 216. 

Philippa, 121, 122. 

Pilgrimages, 109, 146, 147. 

Pilgrim Fathers, 3, 86, 182, 203, 208. 

Plague, 124. 

Plantin, 222. 

Poets, 110. 

Politics, 3, 281, 284, 294. 

Popes, 71, 103, 104, 127, 173, 177, 180, 
181, 183. 

Popinjay, 115. 

Population, 194, 195, 263, 287, 288, 
293 295. 

Portugal! 77, 144, 250. 

Port wine, 250, 251. 

Praetextus, 29. 

Pragmatic Sanction, 238. 

Priests, 114, 210, 231, 246, 281. 

Printing, 82, 142, 144, 179, 222. 

Prosperity, 113, 293. 

Protestants, 181, 182. See Re- 
formed faith. 

Proverbs, 112, 191, 207, 288. 

Provinces, 8, 194, 280. 

Puritans, 113. 

Quatre Bras, 262. 

" Quentin Durward," 47, 134, 150, 

248. 
Quercy-sur-Oise, 55. 

Rabelais, 196. 

Railways, 221, 267, 285, 286. 
Red Star Steamer, 3. 
Reformation, 180, 181, 183. 
Reformed Dutch Church, 196-204, 

264. 
Reformed faith, 182, 196-202, 212, 

227, 228, 275, 290. 



Refugees, 77, 91, 20W5, 247, 264. 
Relics, 33, 44, 108, 147. 
Religion, 18, 24, 109. 
Rembrandt, 202. 
Renaissance, 180. 
Republics, 123, 199, 202, 227, 267. 
Revolutionary War, 2, 244. 
Revolutionists, 247, 283. 
Richard, the Lion-hearted, 79, 121* 
Richildis, 66-68. 
Rivers, 4, 14, 286. 
Roads, 27, 106. 
Robert, Count, 67, 68. 
Rogier, Charles, 285, 286. 
Roland (bell), 146, 166, 189. 
Roman influence, 14, 38, 42. 
Romans, 10-14. 
Roosebeke, 128-30. 
Rotterdam, 90, 265, 275. 
Rubens, 5, 34, 202, 222, 22&-2». 
Ruins, 25. 

Russia, 163, 259, 264. 
Ruward, 120, 127. 
Ryswick, 237. 

St. Aldegonde, 205. 

St. Bavon, 137. 

St. Begga, 86. 

St. Eustatius, 185, 186, 244. 

St. George, 99. 

St. Gertrude, 87. 

St. Gudule, 30, 226, 276. 

St. Levin, 146. 

St. MicAiael, 143. 

Saints, 30-38. 

Saint-Sang, 78. 

St. Trond, 149. 

St. Ursula, 36. 

Salian Franks, 26. 

Salic law, 22. 

Saracens, 71, 75, 151, 191. 

Saxons, 26, 27, 40. 

Scarlet letter, 125. 

Scheldt, 1-6, 10, 12, 23, 51, 56, 228, 

230, 238, 240, 245, 259, 267, 276, 279, 

286, 285. Se& Blockade. 
Schools, 39, 231. 
Scotland, 162. 
Scots, 47, 211, 220, 237, 239. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 47, 57, 72, 80, 134, 

150. 
Scottish guard, 47. 
Sea power, 122, 220, 230. 
Seraing, 267. 
Seventeen provinces, 194, 209,216, 

227. 
Seven Years' War, 240. 
Sheep. See Wool. 
Sicilian Vespers, 97, 271. 
Sigibert, 23, 24. 
Slavery, 12,31,296. 
Sluys, 122. 



334 



INDEX 



Soil, 18, 140, 141. 

Spa, 249-53. 

Spain, 172, 174, 214, 229, 230. 

Spanish army, 77. 

Spanish influences, 178. 

Spectacles, 156. 

Spices, 82, 266. 

Sports, 167. I 

Stained glass, 36. 

States-General, 142, 218, 227, 229, 

237, 270. 
Statues, 6, 8, 15, 39, 74, 101, 120, 203, 

206, 215, 243, 257, 258, 286. 
Stavelot, 34, 259. 
Strada, 194. 
Streefkerk, 265. 
Suffrage, 294. 
Swiss, 153. 
Synods, 201. 

Taine, 47. 

Tapestry, 90, 139, 145, 155-64, 191. 

Temporal power, 103. 

Thackeray, 262. 

Theatre, 88, 271. 

Thierry, 77. 

Thirteenth century, 107. 

Thorhout, 170. 

Titles, 136. 

Toleration, 24. 

Tournay, 28, 43, 90, 183, 278, 279. 

Town halls, 101, 108, 109, 143, 147, 

151. 
Trade routes, 106, 110. 
Treaties, 230, 275, 288. 
Trees, 26, 31. 

Tribunal of Peace, 68, 69. 
Triple Alliance, 236. 
Tripoli, 191. 
Troubles, 205, 246. 
Truce of God, 68. 
Truce of 1609, 220, 221. 
Tunis, 185, 191. 
Turks, 158, 185. 

United States of America, 196, 197, 
203, 207, 224, 228, 232, 235, 238, 239, 
240, 246, 251, 260, 261, 262, 264, 266, 
267, 278, 281, 282, 283, 289, 290, 296, 
299. 

United States of Belgium, 247,248. 

Unity, struggles for, 131, 136, 160. 

Universitiesrss, 281. 

Usselincx, 77, 201. 

Utrecht, 26, 67. 

Valenciennes, 201. 
Van Arteveldes, 52, 119, 12i 127, 
130, 187, 194, 209. 



Van Curler, 28. 

Van Dyke, 177, 222. 

Van Eycks, 109, 143, 152, 161. 

Van der Noot^ 247. 

Vanity Fair, 262. 

Van Manen, 268. 

Van Rensselaer, 3, 28. 

Van Speyk, 277, 288. 

Vassals, 172. 

Venice, 62, 79, 110. 

Vercingetorix, 13. 

Verdun Treaty, 51-54. 

Vesalius, 191, 208. 

Vienna, 141. 

Vikings, 41. 

Wales, 46. 

Walloons, 3, 12, 15, 17, 45, 46, 62. 

63, 182, 196-200, 218, 229, 238, 289, 

293. 
Walloons in America, 77, 99, 182, 

196-200, 203. 
Walloons in England, 200. 
Walloon Infantry, 190, 202, 255. 
Walloon language, 54, 166. 
Walloonsche Bibilothek, 204. 
War, 95, 280, 300. 
Washington, 193, 232, 233, 240, 264, 

283 
Waterloo, 17, 261, 262. 
Weavers, 127, 157. 
Weddings, 138, 150-52, 163, 167-69, 

238. 
Week-day names, 18. 
Wellington, 238. 
Wenceslas, 125, 126, 127. 
West India Company, 77, 201. 
Wes'jphalia, 230. 
Wilhelmina, Queen, 4, 126, 282, 

287. 
William I, 52, 260, 263-74, 279, 280. 
William of Orange, 52, 92, 192, 193, 

194, 199, 205, 209. 
William II, 264, 272, 274. 
William III, 235, 236. 
Windmills, 5. 
Wine, 145. 

Woeringen, 69, 103-05. 
Wolf, 35. 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 181. 
Women, 31, 33, 37, 65, 84-93. 
Wool, 61, 98, 109, 139, 156. 

Xanten, 12. 

Ypres, 118. 

I Zeebrugge, 293. 
I Zeeland, 4. 



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